This blog started off by focussing on NZ's smaller 3rd level airlines, past and present. It has evolved to trying to present some record of NZ's domestic airline operations and some of the larger charter operators, interesting NZ international airliner movements and photos I have taken around the country. Comments, corrections or contributions are welcome, Steve - westland831@gmail.com Comment Policy Advance Indiana allows you to post comments via this blog subject to the guidelines set forth herein. You understand that any comments you post are your own and are not those of Advance Indiana. You further understand that Advance Indiana is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced in your comments. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable comments are not acceptable. 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Email otagosh@gmail.com #coronavirus-additional cases New COVID-19 cases under 30,000 for 4th consecutive day South Korea's new coronavirus cases stayed below 30,000 for a fourth straight day Saturday with the daily death toll down to its 14-week low for a Saturday. The country reporte... #BLACKPINK BLACKPINK to headline BST Hyde Park festival next year K-pop sensation BLACKPINK will headline British Summer Time (BST) Hyde Park in London next year, the group's agency and the festival announced Saturday. The four-member act will... Although yoga is supposed to be about balance, centering yourself and mental mindfulness, there's been a few offshoots in recent years that have changed up traditional yoga. Bikram yoga, for example, sees people take part in a session whilst in a heated environment. We've done it and, honestly, it's just the absolute worst. However, there is a new variant of yoga that seems way more up our street. Rage Yoga involves the same stances and movements of traditional yoga, but instead of being held inside a traditional studio, it's held inside a pub in Calgary, Alberta in Canada. Yes, really. Yoga instructor Lindsay Istace believes that Rage Yoga takes the formality and seriousness out of the meditation, which she feels can be quite intimidating for newcomers. "I cant do the super serious thing," she said. "I want to be able to giggle out loud if I fall over. I know not all studios are like that, but I felt like I didnt fit in most of the time." What's more, instead of finishing each class with the traditional 'Namaste' greeting, yoginis shout 'F*CK YEAH' during to round out the class. Oh, and they're allowed to take a sip of beer during their session as well. It's in a pub, after all. "There have been no spills, explained Istace. "I just ask people be mindful of their water... or their beer." As Istace explains it, Rage Yoga is supposed to be a little bit of fun and get people who normally wouldn't try yoga to give it a shot. "What I want to do with this is use it as an awesome gateway yoga: get people to try out yoga for those who are intimidated by studios but want to try out a class," Istace said. Currently, there's no Rage Yoga classes in Ireland - but that's not to say you can't attempt it in the privacy of your own home either. Via MetroNews.ca Charlie Cox says his return as Daredevil "still feels too good to be true" Ilus Eesti, beautiful Estonia. My family's homeland. Estonia's countryside and people have an endearing gentleness about them which you fall in love with slowly and imperceptibly. I have nothing but respect and admiration for Estonians' courage and determination to survive despite centuries of repression, tyranny and foreign occupation. 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It features a newspaper headline suggesting Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would crush GOP frontrunner Donald Trump in a general election. A narrator says, In Florida, a vote for Cruz or Kasich is a vote for Trump. Its time to stop Trump and elect a president we'll be proud of. Marco Rubio. Florida, make it happen. This is the second smear ad with Kasich; On Wednesday the same super PAC launched an ad attacking his record as Ohios governor. The 30-second spot calls out Kasich for expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and for increasing taxes on a list of items including, cars, laundry, lawns, gyms, Internet and on and on. The Kasich campaign responded to the ads, with Communications Director Chris Schrimpf telling FOXBusiness.com, "After his attacks against Trump failed, it's sad to see the Rubio team now resort to attacking John Kasich, the one candidate who has run a positive campaign. If history is any guide, these negative ads will backfire and Gov. Kasich will only climb higher in the polls." The Kasich focused ads are circulating in Florida and Illinois as Rubio faces his biggest make-or-break moment in the Florida primary. Rubio has said he must win in his home state to remain a viable contender for the Republican nomination. At this point Rubio has won one state and delegates in Puerto Rico, placing in third and fourth finishes in most presidential contests. It is the latest sign of trouble for the Rubio campaign, which has been fighting rumors of dropping out ahead of the March 15 primary. Story continues According to a recent Fox News poll, Trump is in the lead in Florida with 43% support from likely Republican primary voters compared to Rubios distant second with 20%. Cruz has 16% and Kasich comes in fourth with 10%. Trump also leads Rubio 47-22% among the quarter of Florida Republicans who reported already voting. The poll shows 48% of Sunshine State GOP voters approve of Rubios performance as senator, while 38% disapprove. The final GOP debate before the March 15 primary was scheduled to take place Thursday night in Miami, Florida. Its the last chance for the remaining Republican candidates to appear on a national stage together and make their case to primary voters in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina. Related Articles The central obstacles to talks are the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, presidential elections and the type of new government (AFP Photo/Louai Beshara) Geneva (AFP) - Syria's warring sides clashed over the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, with the government vowing his ouster remains a "red line" for looming peace talks while the opposition vowed to see him go -- dead or alive. The UN-brokered, indirect negotiations due to begin in Geneva on Monday are the latest international push to find a solution to Syria's five-year civil war, which has killed more than 270,000 people. Government negotiators are expected in Geneva on Sunday, where delegates from the main opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) are already preparing. But questions have been raised over whether the fresh talks will be more successful than the last round, which collapsed in February, as the two sides wrangled over the president's future. "We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency... Bashar al-Assad is a red line," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told a Damascus news conference. "If they continue with this approach, there's no reason for them to come to Geneva," he said. The HNC has repeatedly called for Assad's departure as a prerequisite for any deal, and chief opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush said the president must go for peace talks to stand a chance. "We believe that the transitional period should start with the fall, or death, of Bashar al-Assad," he told AFP in a joint interview in Geneva. "It cannot start with the presence of the regime, or the head of this regime still in power." UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura has said the Geneva meetings would not last more than 10 days. - 'Assad stronger than ever' - The negotiations are set to cover the formation of a new government, a fresh constitution and UN-monitored presidential and parliamentary elections within 18 months. Assad's fate has been one of the main stumbling blocks in previous rounds, with key ally Russia rejecting any suggestion he should go while opposition-backer the US has called for him to step down. Story continues Analysts have cast doubt on whether the latest efforts will be any more successful. "Assad is stronger than ever and is going nowhere," said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, adding the talks' agenda "is not realistic". Muallem said the UN envoy had no right to "discuss presidential elections," saying the talks aim to form a unity government to appoint a committee to either write a new constitution or amend the existing one. "Then we will have a referendum for the Syrian people to decide on it," he said. The HNC has called for the creation of a transitional body with full executive powers, and Alloush said Muallem's comments "show that the regime is not serious about the political process". There have also been questions about how far any deal would be felt on Syria's battlefields, where myriad groups have been competing for territory. Russia had called on De Mistura to include Syrian Kurds in peace talks, but the envoy told Swiss newspaper Le Temps that while they would not take part, they should be given a chance to express their views. - 'Significant' fall in violence - Fighting has eased across Syria since a landmark ceasefire between Syria's regime and rebels, bar some Islamist groups, took effect two weeks ago. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the truce had reduced violence by 80-90 percent since coming into force on February 27, which he described as "very, very significant" news ahead of the talks. He said US and Russian officials would meet in Geneva and Amman on Saturday to discuss opposition complaints of violations. "We believe that the start of talks this next week in Geneva presents a critical moment for bringing the political solution to the table that we've all been waiting for," he said after meeting top officials in Saudi Arabia. Both sides have accused the other of breaking the truce, and Alloush said there have been 350 violations since it began, which showed the regime was "not serious" about the ceasefire. Regime air raids killed seven civilians in rebel-held areas of second city Aleppo on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based monitor said an Islamist rebel group claimed to have shot down a regime warplane Saturday in central Hama province, but a pro-government Facebook page blamed "technical difficulties". Elsewhere, at least three rockets fired from Syria hit the Turkish border town of Kilis without causing casualties, the local governor's office said. Pro-refugee activists keep vigil outside the Mater Hospital in Brisbane on February 21, 2016 (AFP Photo/Patrick Hamilton) (AFP/File) Kupang (Indonesia) (AFP) - Six Bangladeshi migrants caught entering Australian waters by the country's border patrol have been sent back to Indonesia on a fishing boat, an Indonesian official said Thursday. The move drew criticism from the Indonesian foreign ministry, which reiterated its opposition to Australia's controversial policy and warned such acts could be dangerous at sea. The six men and two Indonesian crew departed the eastern Indonesian city of Kupang last week bound for Australia. Local water police chief Teddy John Sahala Marbun said they reached Australian waters after three days at sea but ran into engine trouble, and were rescued by Australia's border patrol as their boat began to sink. "After several days of sailing, the Australian customs vessel then entered Indonesian waters and handed the men over to an Indonesian fishing boat," he told AFP. "They gave the fishermen fuel and other logistics, and asked them to return the men to East Nusa Tengarra (in eastern Indonesia)." The crew have been detained in Kupang and could face people smuggling charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. The boat's captain Isai Rano admitted he was paid 92 million Indonesian rupiah (about $7,000) to take the six Bangladeshis to Australia, Marbun said. Immigration officials are still questioning the Bangladeshis about how they managed to enter Indonesia, while police search for other possible suspects. "We are having a problem communicating because they only speak very little English," Marbun said. Canberra's hardline policy of intercepting and turning back boats trying to reach Australia has largely stemmed the flow of vessels, but some still try to make the journey. The controversial approach has caused particular tensions with Indonesia, the transit point for many would-be refugees and economic migrants en route to Australia. Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said Jakarta's position on the policy remained unchanged. "We do not support such acts, especially when done on water. It could potentially be dangerous," he told reporters. It would also not provide a permanent solution to illegal migrant issues, he added. (Adds party decides no member can join cabinet, Temer re-elected) By Anthony Boadle BRASILIA, March 12 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's main coalition partner served notice on Saturday that it could break from her embattled Workers' Party government in 30 days and join opposition efforts to unseat the leftist leader. At a rowdy convention of the fractious Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), leaders quashed a motion by irate delegates who wanted to quit Rousseff's government immediately, before it goes down in a political storm over corruption and economic recession. Instead, Brazil's largest party agreed to put off that decision for 30 days and leave it to the party executive committee, ensuring unity behind its leader, Michel Temer, who is Rousseff's vice president. Party insiders said this gives the PMDB time to gauge the level of support in the country for the impeachment of Rousseff sought by opposition parties in Congress, which could put Temer in the presidential seat. Rousseff's opponents have called nationwide demonstrations against her on Sunday. While the PMDB has six ministers in Rousseff's cabinet, the convention banned members from accepting new posts until the party decides to leave the government or not in one month. The widening corruption probe surrounding state-run oil company Petrobras has turned many PMDB lawmakers against Rousseff, threatening to split her coalition and increasing chances of her impeachment in Congress this year. Plea bargain testimony by defendants in the bribery and political kickback scandal have led prosecutors closer to Rousseff's inner circle, including Workers' Party founder and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who is being investigated for allegedly benefiting from graft money. The anti-Rousseff faction of the PMDB rallied the convention with chants of "Out with Dilma" and "Out with the Workers' Party" and "Temer for president." "This was the PMDB's most anti-Workers' Party convention in 12 years. Not a single leader spoke in favor of the government, even the ministers in the cabinet remained silent," said Darcisio Perondi, a lawmaker from Rio Grande do Sul state. Story continues The PMDB reconfirmed Temer as its leader by 96 percent of the votes cast, a sign of unity in a party that is touting itself as the best option to overcome Brazil's political crisis and pull the country out of a severe recession. In his speech, Temer said the PMDB has a blueprint to stimulate business, reduce the size of government, create new jobs and restore growth to an economy that shrank 3.8 percent last year, its worst performance in 25 years. PMDB party members are increasingly impatient to distance themselves from the unpopular Rousseff and her ruling Workers' Party that has been in office since 2003. "This government will fall, it cannot survive. Either we abandon ship now or go down with it," said Carlos Marun, a lawmaker from the farm state Mato Grosso do Sul. If Rousseff is not impeached, Marun warned, Brazil's top electoral court could annul the Rousseff-Temer election win in 2014 in an investigation of graft money allegedly used to fund their campaign. Several of the PMDB leaders standing next to Temer at the convention are themselves the target of corruption probes, including the speaker of the lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, who has been indicted for laundering money in the Petrobras kickback scandal. The PMDB, a party with no fixed ideology, has been in power ever since Brazil restored democracy in 1985 after two decades of military rule, either in the government or controlling one of the two house of Congress. The PMDB plans to field it own presidential candidate in the next elections in 2018, but if it decides to break with Rousseff sooner rather than later as many of its members now want, her impeachment is all but certain and Temer would finish her term. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Mary Milliken) By Paulo Prada RIO DE JANEIRO, March 11 (Reuters) - Criminal charges and a request by prosecutors to jail Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are putting the former Brazilian president and leftist icon back in a role he has long relished: that of the martyr. The 70-year-old former metalworker, still a hero to blue-collar Brazilians because of an economic boom that created millions of jobs during his two terms as president, has known since his days as a union leader how to cast himself as the victim of an oppressive elite, galvanizing the working class behind him. Last week, after federal police took him into custody briefly for questions about a far-reaching graft probe around Brazil's state-run oil company, Lula said he "felt like a prisoner" and urged leftist organizations, from landless peasants to labor unions, to rally. "Summon me," he said, asking them to show support. "I am going to travel this country." For the beleaguered government of President Dilma Rousseff, Lula's successor and protegee, any traction Lula gets could provide relief at a time when it is crippled by impeachment proceedings, an economy that shrunk by 3.8 percent last year and a corruption scandal that is drawing ever closer to her inner circle. "This is a paralyzed government that needs any help it can get," says Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Insper, a Sao Paulo business school. "Even if Lula himself has lost some support, he still knows how to mobilize the party militants. The government will hitch a ride on that." Of course, Lula's circumstances are far different from four decades ago, when he mobilized hundreds of thousands of workers against a military dictatorship and played a role in restoring democracy to Latin America's biggest country. Federal prosecutors say they believe Lula accepted illicit payments and favors connected to the giant kickback scandal around Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the oil company. In a separate, but related investigation, state prosecutors in Sao Paulo, Brazil's industrial capital and the cradle of Lula's Workers' Party, have charged him with crimes including fraud and money laundering. Story continues Lula has denied any wrongdoing. 'AN ACT OF INJUSTICE' The widening scandal, and the allegations against him, have eroded the popularity of Brazil's first working-class president, who enjoyed approval ratings of nearly 90 percent when he left office at the end of 2010. In a recent Datafolha poll simulating the presidential election in 2018, when Lula could attempt to return as the Workers' Party candidate, he had 20 percent of the vote, slightly less than the centrist candidate who heads the chief opposition party. On Thursday, the state prosecutors asked a judge to jail Lula, pending further legal proceedings. The move was criticized as slipshod by many jurists, who argue that a world-famous leader poses virtually no flight risk. Rousseff, in comments to reporters on Friday, said the request "exceeds the limits of good sense, is an act of injustice." Even Workers' Party rivals said it could provide ammunition for those who characterize the ongoing investigations as a witch hunt. Indeed, in a statement late Thursday, Lula's defense cast him as a historic underdog still fighting oppression. The request is an effort "to gag a political leader, to impede his expression of thought and even the exercise of his rights," wrote Cristiano Zanin Martins, one of Lula's attorneys. "Only in the dictatorship, when all rights of the citizen were suspended, were opinions and the exercise of rights reason to deprive liberty." Rousseff on Friday said she would be proud to have Lula in her government, referring to the possibility that the government could shield Lula by appointing him to her cabinet. Under Brazilian law, that would require any legal charges against him to go before the Supreme Court. People familiar with the possibility, however, say that Lula is unlikely to accept such an offer, because doing so could be interpreted as an admission of guilt. More likely, they say, Lula will continue efforts to rally what's left of his political base. On Sunday, opposition groups have scheduled the latest in a series of demonstrations to express support for Rousseff's ouster. In addition to ongoing impeachment proceedings, launched last year over accounting tricks in the government budget, Rousseff faces a court decision over the alleged use of kickbacks to finance her 2014 re-election campaign. Rousseff denies both sets of accusations. So far, the demonstrations have been lackluster, composed mostly of upper and middle-class whites who traditionally oppose the Workers' Party. But the growing tension has led some government leaders to ask leftist groups to refrain from inciting clashes of the sort that erupted between supporters and opponents outside Lula's home and the Sao Paulo airport where he was questioned last week. "You have a government that may not conclude its term and the prospect of Lula in jail," says Alberto Almeida, a consultant at the Instituto Analise, a political and social analysis firm in Sao Paulo. "They (the Workers' Party) are at the point where the only defense is to attack." (Reporting by Paulo Prada; Editing by Mary Milliken) BEIJING (Reuters) - The cut in the credit ratings outlook on China and its financial institutions is a "misjudgement," Shang Fulin, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), told reporters in Beijing on Saturday without identifying any rating agencies. On March 2, Moody's reduced its outlook on Chinese government debt to "negative" from "stable", citing uncertainty over authorities' capacity to implement economic reforms, rising government debt and falling reserves. It also lowered the outlook on 25 Chinese non-insurance financial institutions to negative from stable. (Reporting by Shu Zhang and Matthew Miller; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Sam Holmes) By Adam Rose BEIJING (Reuters) - China's output of key industrial commodities including coal and steel continued to shrink in the first two months of the year amid chronic oversupply, while crude oil production slipped as a global price slump took its toll. Economic activity data also remained weak in January and -February, with factory output growth hitting the lowest since the global financial crisis, keeping pressure on policymakers to do more to avert a sharper showdown in the world's second-largest economy. The government set an economic growth target of 6.5 percent to 7 percent for this year at the country's annual parliament, the National People's Congress, which ran this week. "China's recent National People's Congress provided some positive news for commodity markets by stimulating domestic demand and outlining structural reforms," analysts with ANZ Research said in a commodities note on Friday. "However, any policy support will likely be neutral for the steel and iron ore sectors." Data from the country's statistics bureau showed on Saturday crude steel output in January and February continued to drop, falling 5.7 percent year-on-year to 121.1 million tonnes, which helped to trigger a further 10.4 percent drop in the output of coking coal, a key steel-making material. China accounts for nearly half of global steel production but domestic mills are under heavy pressure to cut output as a result of declining demand. Output fell last year for the first time since 1981. "Demand is basically steady and I certainly haven't seen any explosive demand or any large stimulus policies coming out from the state," Cao Huiquan, chairman of Hunan Valin Iron and Steel Group, said. Raw coal output, which has been falling as a result of government measures to promote cleaner burning fuels, also dropped 6.4 percent from the same period a year ago to 513 million tonnes. The statistics bureau releases only combined data for the first two months of the year because the week-long Spring Festival holiday, which is based on a traditional lunar calendar, can fall in either month. Story continues China generated 870.2 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of power in January and February, rising 0.3 percent from the same period last year, with thermal power generation falling 4.3 percent amid an upsurge in hydro, the data showed on Saturday. Total power generation in China fell for the first time in decades last year, exposing a huge nationwide capacity surplus, especially in the coal-dominated thermal power segment. At the annual parliament this week, the delegation from China's eastern province of Jiangsu called for concrete efforts to cut overcapacity in the cement sector - a major coal and power consumer - noting that capacity was 3.5 billion tonnes, while output was only 2.35 billion tonnes last year. While a slew of government measures and increased lending have helped boost the housing market, a huge overhang of unsold homes in smaller cities has discouraged new construction and investment. Still, real estate investment in China rose 3 percent in the first two months of 2016, compared with 1-percent growth for the whole of last year. The statistics data also showed that output of natural gas, which is used in heating, rose 5.7 percent on year in January and February. Crude oil throughput rose 4.6 percent on year as refiners continued to take advantage of weak global prices to import record amounts of crude, hitting 10.59 million barrels per day, down roughly 2 percent on a daily basis from a record high in December. Crude production fell 0.6 percent in January and February to 34.11 million tonnes, or 4.15 million bpd. Commodity analyst ICIS said earlier this month that it expects crude output to fall 1.5 percent this year amid the weak global prices, the first drop since 2009. Implied oil demand rose 0.6 percent from the same period a year earlier to 10.51 million bpd, rising 1.9 percent from December, according to Reuters calculations using preliminary government data. In its latest forecast, the International Energy Agency said it expects Chinese oil demand to grow 2.9 percent this year, or 331,000 bpd. (Reporting by Adam Rose; Additional Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Sam Holmes) By Pete Sweeney BEIJING (Reuters) - China's labour protections are coming under fire from high places as economic restructuring pits officials concerned about social stability against a lobby arguing inflexible policies are stifling job creation and suppressing wages. Company executives, especially at foreign or private firms, have long been critical of labour contract legislation and minimum wage laws that make it difficult for owners of an ailing business to turn it around or find willing buyers. Now policymakers anxious to modernise China's slowing economy and slash overcapacity in heavy industry are making similar noises. The export powerhouse province of Guangdong, a trillion-dollar economy that often leads the way on market reforms, said on Tuesday it would scrap scheduled rises to the local minimum wage in 2016, and keep it at 2015 levels - slightly over 1,500 yuan (160 pounds) per month - through 2018. On the same day, the official Xinhua media service highlighted comments by finance minister Lou Jiwei, who criticised China's Labour Contract Law in a speech during the annual meeting of parliament. The law dates to 2008, when China had a reputation for sweatshops staffed by underpaid workers, an embarrassment for a ruling party that monopolised power in the name of socialism. The law fixed a 40-hour working week for most employees, regulated maternity leave, and required businesses to be able to prove their case for sacking employees for incompetence or criminality or face heavy penalties. Its standards aspire to those of developed economies, rather than emerging markets, though enforcement is weak. The EU, for example, limits the working week to 48 hours, while China's maximum is about the same, after allowing up to 36 hours a month overtime. Regulations say minimum wages should be between 40 and 60 percent of the local average - though in practice 30-40 percent is typical - compared with about 30 percent in the United States and 50 percent in Britain. Protections against dismissal are comparable to Japan's. "The Chinese government wanted the best, the most polished labour legislation they could find, and simply imposed it on an economy that couldn't cope with it," said Geoffrey Crothall, communications director at China Labour Bulletin. Chinese wages have risen at double-digit rates since the 2008 act, so factory workers now earn significantly higher than competitors in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia, and some think labour protections are hampering an economic transformation that will benefit workers in the long run. "For enterprises and employees, the extent of protection afforded by the Labor Contract Law is unbalanced," Lou said, adding it encouraged companies to moves jobs from China to other countries. "Who eventually bears the costs? The working class who the law was intended to protect," Lou said. Labour activists say the protections are still needed, and businesses often break labour law with impunity, especially if they have local government connections. The Xinhua article was circulated in both Chinese and English with supportive comments from regulators, exciting speculation that changes to the law could be afoot. The timing could suit Beijing, which aims to reduce overcapacity in several industries, laying off an estimated 6 million workers at state-owned firms in the process. It wants to do so without a spike in unemployment or crimping domestic consumption, but strong labour protections make companies unwilling to create new jobs or pay much for the jobs they do create. OFFICIAL INTERFERENCE Danny Lau, who owns a factory in Dongguan city in Guangdong, said he expected the government would soon "consolidate and streamline" the contract law to lower costs for manufacturers. That would be welcome news to businesses exasperated by official interference in their operations. "We have these government bureaucrats who show up at our facility arbitrarily, and they say, 'Let's look at your payroll'," said Ravin Gandhi, CEO of GMM Nonstick Coatings, which runs an office in Dongguan. "And they say, 'Thirty percent of your facility workforce is going to get a pay raise. These people here are going to get 15 percent.' They don't look at your profitability, nothing." As a result, GMM opened its next facility in India, which Gandhi said was 40 percent cheaper than China, even allowing for inferior infrastructure. "Of course I'm going to take my foot off the gas pedal (in China)," he said. "I'll put those dollars in India." When Reuters visited a printing factory in Chongqing in January, the boss was interrupted mid-interview by local officials, who had come to make sure he had paid salaries before the Lunar New Year holidays. "(Last year) they called us into a meeting and said, 'You can't lay off employees'," he added. Many economists say China has posted lacklustre business activity and investment figures - while official unemployment stays below 5 percent - precisely because companies saddled with high wage bills and low profit margins can't cut debt or invest. "It's better to support workers than supporting loss-making firms," Li Yining, an economist at Peking University, said on the sidelines of the annual parliament meeting on Sunday. Local officials have reason to be cautious about diluting protections, however, as a rise in worker protests in their patch can be both physically dangerous and career limiting. Cui Ernan, labour analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, said the government might even increase labour benefits to calm agitated workforces, particularly in regions with heavy lay-offs from coal and steel. "Recent labour strikes at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 are at historical highs," she noted. (Additional reporting by James Pomfret, Kevin Yao, Sue-Lin Wong and Shao Xiaoyi; Editing by Will Waterman) Donald Trump rally Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump canceled a major campaign rally he had planned on Friday night in Chicago, Illinois. Thousands of people gathered at the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion to hear the real-estate mogul. But a large number of them were young and raucous protesters. In a statement, the Trump campaign said: Mr. Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight's rally will be postponed to another date. Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace. CNN's camera captured a number of fights breaking out between Trump supporters and protesters, forcing the event to be postponed to a later date. An anchor on CNN estimated that half of the 10,000-person crowd was demonstrating against the candidate. Anyone carrying protest signs or wearing obvious anti-Trump apparel was not allowed into the pavilion, according to ABC7. Progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org had called for the event's cancellation last week. Executive director Ilya Sheyman said in a statement: Mr. Trump and the Republican leaders who support him and his hate-filled rhetoric should be on notice after tonights events. These protests are a direct result of the violence that has occurred at Trump rallies and that has been encouraged by Trump himself from the stage. Our country is better than the shameful, dangerous, and bigoted rhetoric that has been the hallmark of the Trump campaign. To all of those who took to the streets of Chicago, we say thank you for standing up and saying enough is enough. To Donald Trump, and the GOP, we say, welcome to the general election. Trump and those who peddle hate and incite violence have no place in our politics and most certainly do not belong in the White House. Illinois is one of five states holding primaries on Tuesday. Scenes from outside the arena can be viewed below: Story continues Big protest blocked off Van Buren and Racine st. Cops trying to move crowd. #trumprally pic.twitter.com/nJ46ELYjFj Chicago Reader (@Chicago_Reader) March 12, 2016 Racine blocked from Van Buren to Harrison as protest outside #TrumpRally continues. Live: https://t.co/JYogHcVPqR pic.twitter.com/G5DRvViHHP WGN TV News (@WGNNews) March 12, 2016 Protesters blocking the street outside the Donald Trump rally in Chicago pic.twitter.com/nHpbQAlAFr Brandon Wall (@Walldo) March 12, 2016 Just brought in reinforcements at Chicago Trump Protest. #TrumpRally pic.twitter.com/qvLu5T9k2R Charles E. Tucker (@Domer1979) March 11, 2016 These three were the first protesters evicted from inside the #TrumpRally in Chicago...before it even started. pic.twitter.com/AslUjaGhH6 Harry Huggins (@HarryHuggins) March 12, 2016 Another protester escorted out of UIC Pavilion before the #TrumpRally @WGNNews pic.twitter.com/OboNkFwejJ Gaynor Hall (@gaynor_hall) March 11, 2016 NOW WATCH: 'I don't want to be politically correct' watch Trump defend his 'Islam hates us' comment More From Business Insider Trump protests Donald Trump's campaign canceled a planned rally in Chicago on Friday night at the last minute, citing "security concerns." The cancellation comes after more than 30 people were arrested near another Trump event earlier Friday in St. Louis. Hours later, thousands more protesters gathered in Chicago as Trump and his supporters were arriving for a rally there. After cancelling that event, the GOP primary frontrunner called in to MSNBC and Fox News to talk about it. "Whatever happened to freedom of speech?" Trump said on MSNBC, lamenting that "you can't have a rally in a major city in this country anymore." Trump has often slammed people who protest his rallies. As one demonstrator was escorted out of a Trump event last month, the billionaire mogul said, "I'd like to punch him in the face." On Fox News Friday, Trump was asked whether he would take responsibility for the unrest. "I don't think I play a role in division in this country," he said. The day after a man was criminally charged with allegedly punching a protester at a Trump event this week, the candidate declared "We need a little bit more" violence against protesters. Trump has encountered a number of dissenters since launching his presidential bid last summer many of whom have allegedly been motivated by Trump's own fiery rhetoric. Protesters have often been rushed out of those events, sometimes violently. Donald Trump rally In a Friday interview with CNN, news anchor Don Lemon asked Trump if he regrets some of the words he has said about hurting protesters. "No," Trump said, "many of these protesters are very bad people." The Trump campaign has, in fits and starts, taken a more subdued approach toward people who oppose his candidacy. Announcements are often broadcast at the frontrunner's rallies, telling supporters not to hurt protesters, but to chant instead, allowing security personnel to escort the protesters out. Story continues On MSNBC, Trump insisted that the protests against him, and Friday night's rally cancellation in Chicago, will ultimately help his campaign. "This increases the vote for Trump," he said. NOW WATCH: Watch Rubio and Cruz mock Trumps plan to strike a really good deal with Cuba More From Business Insider Kimbal Musk Elon Musks younger brother owns an expanding restaurant chain thats taking off. After the brothers sold their company, Zip2, for $300 million in 1999, Kimbal Musk moved to Boulder, Colorado, and founded a restaurant called The Kitchen in 2004. The Kitchen has expanded to eight restaurants, including two sister chains with different atmospheres Next Door, which has a family-style setting, and Upstairs, a cocktail lounge. On top of managing his restaurants, Kimbal Musk is also on the board of Tesla, SpaceX, and Chipotle. He told Worth magazine that his goal is to use Chipotles philosophy of healthy food at an affordable price. The Kitchen embraces farm-to-table concept with a focus on the local community and a goal to bring people together over a shared meal. Musk launched a nonprofit organization called The Kitchen Community that uses profits from his restaurants help fund its goal to educate children from low-income homes about sustainable eating habits, such as growing your own food. Fast Company named the chain as one of the most innovative companies of 2016 because of its efforts to bring local food to its restaurants. It was also rated by Zagat as one of Denver's top 10 most influential restaurant empires. His restaurants are located throughout Colorado, with one location in Chicago. He plans to open three locations in Memphis in 2016. Although Kimbal Musk might be associated with his futuristic older brother, hes more passionate about food and focuses his efforts into his restaurants. Here's a look at what it features: Beautiful snowy afternoon in Chicago. #thekitchenchicago A photo posted by The Kitchen (@thekitchen) on Mar 1, 2016 at 2:27pm PST on Mar 1, 2016 at 2:27pm PST Tonight is #CommunityNight at The Kitchen! Every Monday night we offer a seasonal meal served family-style around our community table. The best part? 20% of proceeds from the dinner are donated to nonprofits promoting #realfood education in schools, like @TheKitchenCommunity. Call to make a reservation today. #TheKitchenChicago #RealFood A photo posted by The Kitchen (@thekitchen) on Jan 18, 2016 at 11:49am PST on Jan 18, 2016 at 11:49am PST Happy Weekend! Jason is rolling out tagliatelle pasta for the tasting menu #thekitchenboulder #realfood #tagliatelle A photo posted by The Kitchen (@thekitchen) on Jan 15, 2016 at 10:10am PST on Jan 15, 2016 at 10:10am PST Happy New Year! Today is a day for brunch, #bloodymarys and rest. ( @shanbear29) #realfood A photo posted by The Kitchen (@thekitchen) on Jan 1, 2016 at 6:36am PST on Jan 1, 2016 at 6:36am PST Now serving at #thekitchenfortcollins ( @shannyn101) #realfood by @chefbrentj A photo posted by The Kitchen (@thekitchen) on Mar 4, 2016 at 8:21pm PST on Mar 4, 2016 at 8:21pm PST It's #brunchtime! ( @shannyn101) #thekitchenfortcollins #realfood A photo posted by The Kitchen (@thekitchen) on Feb 27, 2016 at 9:47am PST on Feb 27, 2016 at 9:47am PST NOW WATCH: The hottest restaurant in the world has a 27,000-person waiting list and is only open for 70 days More From Business Insider By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian boy and his sister were killed in Hamas-controlled Gaza on Saturday when they were hit by fragments from a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft, medical officials said. The incident took place hours after militants launched rockets into Israel. An Israeli military statement said aircraft had targeted four militant training camps belonging to Hamas after four missiles landed in open areas in southern Israel on Friday night. No casualties were reported from the rocket strikes. Residents of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip said Yassin Abu Khoussa, 10, died after debris from the explosion hit his home, which is situated next to a militant training camp. His six-year-old sister, Israa, who was seriously wounded, later died in hospital, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said. The fatalities from air strikes in Gaza were the first since last October. The Israeli army said that since the beginning of the year and including Friday's salvo, seven rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said rogue militant groups had been responsible for the launchings. "We will not tolerate the disruption of calm and the daily life of the residents who live around the Gaza Strip ... which is why we reacted strongly against Hamas assets and we will act even more harshly if these attempts continue," Yaalon said. Gaza rocket fire has tapered off significantly since the 2014 war when militants fired thousands of rockets and mortar rounds into Israel. Israeli attacks killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, while Palestinian fighters killed six Israeli civilians and 67 soldiers. In a rare threat-implied statement against Israel since the Gaza war, Hamas's armed wing said it would "not accept (Israel's) shedding of the blood of our children." But it stopped short of vowing retaliation. Beset by a months-long surge in street attacks by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Israel has little desire to see a new flare-up in Gaza, where Hamas has mostly held its fire in the past 18 months. An Israeli official said that in its effort to tackle Hamas's attempts at incitement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to French President Francois Hollande on Friday and that French satellite firm Eutelsat had taken Hamas's al-Aqsa television station off air. But Gaza Strip residents said the channel was still being received via other satellites. (This version of the story adds statements by Israeli defence minister, Hamas armed wing, Israel saying French satellite takes Hamas TV station off air) (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Greg Mahlich) US Secretary of States John Kerry said that "perceived" violations of the ceasefire that went into effect on February 27 should not get in the way of peace talks (AFP Photo/Christof Stache) KING KHALID MILITARY CITY (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) - US and Russian officials were to meet Saturday on Syrian opposition charges of truce violations by the regime but peace talks remain on course, US Secretary of State John Kerry said. Asked at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia whether indirect dialogue in Geneva between the Syrian regime and opposition could go ahead as planned on Monday, Kerry said: "Yes, it can." "Our teams are meeting today with Russia in both Geneva and Amman, where very detailed lay downs will take place regarding these allegations and I am requesting a call with Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov today and we will work through these and we have been each day," he said of the opposition complaints. Air raids by the Syrian regime killed seven civilians in rebel-held areas of second city Aleppo on Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based monitoring group termed the strikes as "the most serious violation in the city since the truce came into effect". But Kerry, who met Saudi Arabia's King Salman for talks on Syria, said that "perceived" violations of the ceasefire that went into effect on February 27 should not derail the UN-mediated peace talks. "The level of violence by all accounts has been reduced by 80 to 90 percent, which is very, very significant. And what we want to do is continue to work to reduce these." On Friday, the Syrian opposition said it will attend the peace talks, stoking hopes that the war-ravaged country may be able to end five years of civil war and move towards elections in 18 months. The two-week ceasefire has created a lull in fighting between the Russian-backed regime and non-jihadist rebels. The UN Syria envoy called on Friday for elections in the war-ravaged country to be held by the middle of 2017. The US State Department said the truce "has produced a dramatic reduction in violence" although it warned the regime was still carrying out attacks. Story continues "Despite the reduction in violence nationwide, we remain deeply concerned by continued specific violations to the cessation of hostilities, including attacks on civilians and opposition forces by the regime and its supporters," spokesman John Kirby said. The Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee, the main Syrian opposition grouping, agreed on Friday to attend the talks. The HNC said it would focus on creating a "transitional governance body with full executive powers", while insisting President Bashar al-Assad "will have no place" in a future government. A plan agreed by world powers last year called for six months of negotiations followed by a transitional government, a new constitution and elections within 18 months. Assad's regime announced last month that it would hold parliamentary elections on April 13 instead, drawing criticism. A source close to Syria's government told AFP this week its delegation would be attending the Geneva talks. - 'Substantive' talks in Geneva - UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has said the Geneva talks would be "substantive" and last no longer than 10 days. "New elections... should be held 18 months from the start of talks, that is from March 14," de Mistura told Russia's RIA Novosti state news agency. In addition to planning the polls, the focus in Geneva will be on the formation of "an inclusive new government" and a new constitution, said the envoy. The complex war, which is to enter its sixth year next week, has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced half the population. Russia on Friday urged the UN to include the Kurds, who have been a major force in fighting jihadists such as the Islamic State group. Excluding them would be "a most serious infringement of the rights of a large and significant group living in Syria", Foreign Minister Lavrov said. The last round of UN-sponsored talks collapsed in February after the government began a fierce Russian-backed offensive around second city Aleppo. A black bear is seen in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia (AFP Photo/Karen Bleier) (AFP/File) Miami (AFP) - The Louisiana black bear, which inspired the popular stuffed animal "teddy bears" in the early 1900s, was taken off the Endangered Species List on Thursday after 24 years of conservation efforts, US officials said. The Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus lutelous) was listed as endangered in 1992, when only about 150 existed in the wild. Their population had declined drastically due to habitat loss and overhunting. Today, the US Fish and Wildlife Service says between 500 and 750 bears live in the species' currently range, which includes the forests of Louisiana and Mississippi. "Successful recovery efforts are allowing breeding populations to expand," said the US Fish and Wildlife Service in a statement. "As such, the bear is not likely to become in danger of extinction now or within the foreseeable future." The FWS proposed delisting the Louisiana black bear in May 2015, and accepted public comments for a period of time before issuing the final decision. "As I said last spring when the delisting proposal was announced, the Louisiana black bear is another success story for the Endangered Species Act," said US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. The Louisiana black bear rose to fame in the early 20th century after one bear's encounter with the president. In 1902, president Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was on a hunting trip in Mississippi. He was unable to find any bears to shoot until the third day, when aides found a black bear that had been chased and attacked by dogs and tied it to a tree for Roosevelt to shoot. The US leader decided he could not shoot the bear, but ordered that it be put down to end its suffering. The story spread in US newspapers and editorial cartoons, and inspired the creation of stuffed animals named "teddy bears" by a Brooklyn candy store owner. KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A top Malaysian finance ministry official is set to be appointed central bank governor to replace Zeti Akhtar Aziz next week, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified sources. Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah will replace Zeti, who steps down as Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor on April 30 after 16 years at the helm, the newspaper said. When contacted by Reuters, Mohd Irwan said in a text message he did not know if he had been shortlisted for the role. A spokesman at the Prime Minister's Office told Reuters he would not comment on speculation. A central bank spokeswoman said the bank could not comment on the matter. Zeti is widely respected, and credited for pushing reforms and sound policies, as well as protecting the independence of the central bank. There has been no official word on her replacement. Market participants feared political interference in the appointment by Prime Minister Najib Razak's government especially after BNM insisted that state-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) be charged for fiscal mismanagement.. Mohd Irwan was one of the candidates short-listed for the job along with deputy central bank governor Muhammad Ibrahim, the minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of Economic Planning Abdul Wahid Omar and the ambassador to the United States Awang Adek Hussin, Reuters reported in February. A career civil servant, Mohd Irwan is Treasury secretary-general at the Finance Ministry, which is headed by Prime Minister Najib. He is also a member of the board of advisers for 1MDB. (Reporting by Praveen Menon and Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Sam Holmes) Commuters pass by the front of the Bangladesh central bank building in Dhaka March 8, 2016. REUTERS/Ashikur Rahman By Serajul Quadir DHAKA (Reuters) - Investigators suspect unknown hackers installed malware in the Bangladesh central bank's computer systems and watched, probably for weeks, for how to go about withdrawing money from its U.S. account, two bank officials briefed on the matter said on Friday. More than a month after hackers breached Bangladesh Bank's systems and attempted to steal nearly $1 billion from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, cyber security experts are trying to find out how the hackers got in. FireEye Inc's Mandiant forensics division is helping investigate the cyber heist, which netted hackers more than $80 million before it was uncovered. The hackers appeared to have stolen Bangladesh Bank's credentials for the SWIFT messaging system, which banks around the world use for secure financial communication. In a statement Friday, Belgium-based SWIFT said: "SWIFT and the Central Bank of Bangladesh are working together to resolve an internal operational issue at the central bank. SWIFTs core messaging services were not impacted by the issue and continued to work as normal." Banks and other businesses are eager to learn more about how the central bank was compromised so they can review their own networks for signs that they are vulnerable to similar attacks or might already have been breached, security professionals and bank executives told Reuters. The incident could prompt central banks worldwide to beef up security and regulate financial institutions more tightly to prevent similar attacks, said Aviv Raff, chief technology officer with the cyber security firm Seculert. "If banks are not better regulated this will for sure happen again," said Raff. Investigators suspect that malicious software code, often referred to as malware, which allowed hackers to learn how to withdraw the money could have been installed several weeks before the incident, which took place between Feb. 4 and Feb. 5, said Bangladesh Bank officials briefed on the matter. Story continues Investigators believe the attack was sophisticated, describing the use of a "zero day" and referring to an "advanced persistent threat," the officials said. A zero day is a vulnerability in software that has yet to be identified or patched. This makes it easier for hackers to infect a targeted computer without the victim's knowledge, even if it is protected with security software. Advanced persistent threat refers to long-term attacks where hackers remain inside a network for months or even years. Security experts said they hope samples of the malware will be made available to researchers so they can determine whether they are truly advanced, or if Bangladesh Bank's security protections were not strong enough to block the attack. "The next piece of the puzzle that will likely emerge is a sample of the malware and/or if a true zero-day vulnerability was used," said Jeff Wichman, a consultant with cyber security firm Optiv. The Bangladesh Bank officials acknowledged weaknesses in their systems and said it could take two years or more to repair the problems. Wichman said he suspects one of the tools was a customised version of a common piece of malware known as a Remote Access Trojan, or RAT, which gives attackers the ability to gain remote control of a victim's computer. So far investigators have not found any proof that central bank staff in Bangladesh were involved, one of the officials said, but said the probe was continuing. Security experts say that if insiders were not involved, the attackers likely had assistance from somebody close to the banking industry. They also may have spied on bank workers over an extended period to gain details about wire-transfer processes and other operations, they said. "It takes somebody with deep knowledge of the banking industry to perform these types of crime," said Shane Shook, a security consultant who has investigated some of the biggest cyber breaches on record. The New York Fed, which provides banking services to some 250 central banks and other institutions, has said its systems were not compromised. The Bangladesh central bank had billions of dollars in its current account, which it used for international settlements, officials have said. The stolen money made its way to various parts of the world. Some $80 million are believed to have ended in the Philippines, and further diverted to casinos and then to Hong Kong, according to bank officials. One $20 million transaction was directed to a non-profit organization in Sri Lanka. But the unusually large transaction for the island nation and a misspelling of the NGO's name raised red flags that helped bring the robbery to light. The transaction was blocked as was another huge payment instruction that was for between $850 million and $870 million. (Writing by Paritosh Bansal. Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Jeremy Wagstaff, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Jonathan Weber and Chizu Nomiyama) marco rubio msnbc For at least 13 minutes Saturday morning, Marco Rubio presented perhaps his most passionate argument yet against GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. "I still at this moment continue to intend to support the Republican nominee, but it's getting harder every day," Rubio said while also strongly criticizing the media for promoting Trump. A day after Trump suddenly canceled a massive Chicago rally amid fights and mass protests, Rubio said the "third-world images" were the result of Trump's own words. As Rubio took questions from reporters in Florida, he said: You saw those images last night of people ... often divided up on racial lines in many cases. Police officers bleeding from the head reminiscent of images from the '60s. I mean, we're going backwards here. This is a frightening, grotesque, and disturbing development in American politics. Rubio pointed to the fact that Trump often deploys violent rhetoric against demonstrators at rallies. At his events, Trump has mused about punching protesters in the face, and once said he would pay the legal bills of his fans if they assaulted anyone trying to throw tomatoes at him. "This boiling point that we have now reached has been fed largely by the fact that we have a frontrunner in my party who has fed into language that basically justifies physically assaulting people who disagree with you," Rubio said. Trump protest Chicago On Thursday, a Trump rally attendee was charged with assault in relation to an incident in which a protester was filmed raising his middle finger to the crowd before being sucker punched. The incident was brought up at Thursday's primary debate, during which a moderator asked Trump if he was responsible for the "tone" of his rallies. Story continues Trump said he didn't condone the violence, but the next day in St. Louis, the candidate repeatedly complained about how "gentle" his protesters were being treated. He also suggested that protesters waving their middle fingers should be held responsible for provoking others. "A Donald Trump supporter sucker punched a man the other day at an event. Donald Trump has yet to condemn it," Rubio said Saturday. He continued: So it tells you, it tells you in many ways he doesn't want to say anything to his supporters because he doesn't want to turn them off. Because he understands that the reason why they are voting for him is because he has tapped into this anger. The problem is leadership has never been about taking people's anger and using it to get them to vote for you. If it is, it's a dangerous style of leadership. Rubio, a senator from Florida, has focused his campaign almost exclusively on winning his home state in next Tuesday's primary contests. During his Saturday press conference, Rubio said he was confident in his chances in Florida, but worried about what a Trump nomination would mean for their party. "I believe Donald Trump as our nominee is going to shatter and fracture the Republican Party and the conservative movement," he said. Watch the press conference below: NOW WATCH: 'Marco Rubio is trying to steal my girlfriend': Watch the bizarre moment a protester interrupted a Rubio rally More From Business Insider cause yeah The Russian Ministry of Defense has announced plans that it is seeking to buy five young and healthy dolphins, Russian news sources reported this week. According to the Russian media company TASS, the defense ministry is willing to pay upward of $25,000 for the dolphins. Specifically, the Kremlin is looking to buy two females and three males between three and five years of age. The dolphins must also be between 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) and 2.7 meters (8.9 feet) long. TASS notes that the Ministry of Defense has not specified the reasons it is looking to purchase the marine mammals. However, an anonymous Russian military source told Russian media company RIA Novosti that the Kremlin wanted the dolphins to add to the stocks of trained dolphins that Russia had seized from Ukraine in Crimea. Russia seized control of Ukraine's military-dolphin division in March 2014. The dolphin division was originally created by the Soviet Union, but passed into the control of Ukraine following the union's dissolution. After the seizure of the dolphins in March 2014, RIA Novosti wrote that the "dolphins are trained to patrol open water and attack or attach buoys to items of military interest, such as mines on the sea floor or combat scuba divers trained to slip past enemy security perimeters, known as frogmen." Russia's interest in acquiring new dolphins demonstrates the country's efforts to perpetuate its dolphin program. Ukraine, for its part, has been lobbying Russia to return the dolphins it seized in Crimea, stating that the dolphins did not have a choice of whether they wanted to be part of Russia or Ukraine during the Crimean referendum. NOW WATCH: There is a life-size chocolate statue of Vladimir Putin and he's the only one who's allowed to eat it More From Business Insider (Adds details, response from USTR and Whirlpool) By Tom Miles and David Lawder GENEVA/WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - South Korea won a partial victory against the United States in a World Trade Organization ruling on Friday that found fault with the method used to calculate U.S. duties imposed on Korean-made washing machines that are deemed to be subsidized and unfairly priced. The ruling will not immediately alter the countervailing duties of up to 82 percent imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department in 2013 on washers made by Samsung Electronics Co , LG Electronics Inc and Daewoo Electronics Co after a complaint brought by Michigan-based Whirlpool Corp. South Korea in August 2014 brought its objections to the WTO about the U.S. calculation methods, which are also the subject of a wide-ranging dispute brought by China against the United States. A WTO panel of three adjudicators rejected several of South Korea's claims, including objections to the Commerce Department's findings that tax credit subsidies were not tied to specific products. But it upheld South Korea's objection to calculations of duties for "targeted dumping" of products into the U.S. market aimed at regions, time periods or customers with price cuts. William Perry, an international trade lawyer in Seattle with Dorsey & Whitney LLP, said the decision, if upheld, could ultimately make it more difficult for U.S. manufacturers to bring similar cases involving targeted dumping by Chinese companies. A spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington said: "We are carefully reviewing the report and considering next steps." Both countries have 60 days to appeal. "Today's WTO decision will not affect the application of the 2013 antidumping and countervailing duties orders on clothes washers from Korea," Whirlpool said in a statement. "This 2013 order followed a U.S. government ruling that washers imported from South Korea were unlawfully priced and subsidized." (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Andrew Roche and Leslie Adler) Donald Trump As tensions run boil over the presidential-campaign trail, Donald Trump could be just days away from effectively locking up the Republican presidential nomination. Wins next week in Florida and Ohio the two largest winner-take-all states in terms of delegates would be what he called the "knockout" on CNN last Wednesday, two days before he canceled a Chicago rally amid mass protests. "I think if I win those two, I think it's over," Trump said. "I think if I win Ohio and I win Florida you'll be pretty much assured." He continued: "If you knock them out, nothing can happen. I'd rather go for a knockout." Even Trump's biggest critics agree. Florida GOP consultant Rick Wilson told Business Insider that Trump would be unstoppable after winning the two states. "If Trump wins both Ohio and Florida, the seventh seal has opened and the apocalypse has begun," Wilson said. "The Four Horsemen ride into the land to destroy us all." John Green, the chair of the political-science department at the University of Akron, didn't quite share Wilson's despair. But he did say Trump's assessment of the race was accurate. "I don't find myself agreeing with Donald Trump very often about politics," Green told Business Insider. "But when he said on Wednesday that he thought [the coming Tuesday] would be a decisive day, I think there's a good bit of truth to that." The two wins would give Trump all 165 delegates, even if they were secured through weak statewide pluralities. Trump would then significantly increase the already nearly 100-delegate gap between himself and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Although Cruz is closest to Trump in delegates, Cruz's chances on beating the frontrunner could easily depend on the other two GOP candidates Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Gov. John Kasich besting Trump in their respective home states Tuesday. For Rubio, it appears to be an uphill battle in the Sunshine State. He trailed Trump by roughly 15 points in the RealClearPolitics average of at least 11 polls released this week. The most recent poll suggested that Rubio was gaining ground, but no recent polls have shown him ahead of Trump. Story continues Rubio began to call for strategic voting on Friday, insisting that a vote for any candidate other than himself in Florida is essentially vote for Trump. The senator said that Kasich is "the only one who can beat Donald Trump in Ohio," and added, "If a voter in Ohio is motivated by stopping Donald Trump, I suspect that's the only choice they can make." Marco Rubio But Kasich isn't returning the favor to Rubio. "We were going to win in Ohio without his help, just as he's going to lose in Florida without ours," Kasich campaign spokesman Rob Nichols told Politico. That confidence came from Kasich's tighter battle with Trump in his home state. In Ohio, Kasich trailed Trump by just 2.5 points in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls. Nichols also told Business Insider that Kasich had an "undefeated" and lengthy electoral record in the state. "We're not going to lose Ohio. We're fine," Nichols said. "We're not going to lose Ohio, and Trump will have to go elsewhere." Nichols also predicted that Kasich's fortunes would increase, especially if Rubio hits a wall in Florida. "This is playing out very, very well for us," Nichols said. "What other guy on the stage has a single accomplishment other than personal wealth?" he asked. Green said he believed that Kasich will end up winning Ohio by a slight margin because of his organization within the state. But Green also said he's astonished the race is so close there. "If you would've told me that, 18 months ago, Ohio would have a contested primary at all with an Ohio governor running for president I would've laughed at you," Green said. Over the past few days, Trump's campaign has shifted to go after Kasich much harder. On Friday, Trump released an attack ad against Kasich and criticized him as "absentee" at a campaign rally. On Saturday, the mogul scheduled two more rallies in Ohio. John Kasich Despite the escalating attacks, Kasich has yet to win a state and has the lowest delegate total of the four remaining GOP candidates. And Kasich's path to the nomination is cloudy at best, even if he wins his home state. "There is no path for Kasich right now no matter what," said Wilson, the GOP strategist. "I mean, everybody's saying, 'Marco drop out, Marco drop out.' And John Kasich is not being asked every 30 seconds, 'Why don't you drop out?' is ridiculous." At Thursday's CNN debate, Kasich suggested that like Rubio his plan would be to win the nomination through a contested convention, in which no candidate enters with an outright majority of the delegates. "Frankly, I don't know if we're going to get a convention like that," Kasich said of the possibility. "But if we do, I was at one in 1976 as a wee lad and supported Ronald Reagan and actually worked directly with him. He tried valiantly. He lost. Gerald Ford won. The party was united." But even if Rubio and Kasich both win their home states next week, the battle to stop Trump would be far from over. In a FiveThirtyEight article published Friday, David Wasserman crunched the numbers and concluded that other crucial states could also factor in when they vote next Tuesday. Wasserman wrote: March 15 has long looked like the most pivotal date on the GOP primary calendar. And although Florida and Ohio are hogging the spotlight because they are the sites of Marco Rubio and John Kasichs "last stands," don't forget that two other states could help Donald Trump become essentially unstoppable in his quest for the nomination: Illinois and Missouri. "Together, Missouri and Illinois will award 121 delegates which would go a long way in helping Trump stay 'on track' for the nomination," he added, "even if he loses either Florida or Ohio." NOW WATCH: 'There are two different Donald Trumps' watch Ben Carson's Trump endorsement speech More From Business Insider Ferrari 458 Italia Chinese Special Edition 1 Western brands have been targeting the super rich in China for a long time. That's not unreasonable, when you consider that China has 568 billionaires, compared to the United States' 535 according to The Hurun Report. This gives China the largest billionaire population in the world. However, Landor, a global brand consulting firm, thinks that the biggest opportunity for western companies in China is to "seduce the farmer" the growing middle classes. Landor gives two key reasons for this, which it shared with Business Insider. 1. China's middle class population is the biggest in the world. Middle Class graph Data from the Credit Suisse 2015 wealth report shows that China's middles class population is bigger than Germany, the UK, France, and Spain's combined. 2. China's middle class is growing and getting richer at a rapid rate. Middle classes By 2022, 76% of China's population will be made up by those defined as the middle class, according to a 2013 McKinsey report. The majority will be in the upper middle class, earning at least $16,000 per year. NOW WATCH: Heres why you should never put Q-Tips in your ears More From Business Insider Preschool Brooklyn The elementary admissions process in New York City is utterly grueling, as evidenced by new kindergarten admissions workshops that have popped up around town. But among exemplary schools, one stands out as the gold-standard of top public elementary schools: Hunter College Elementary School. The irony that Hunter has the word "college" in its name shouldn't escape you. Hunter's level of exclusivity tops even that of Harvard University but Hunter evaluates 4-year-olds instead of high school seniors. Hunter College Elementary is a K-6 school that is publicly funded and serves intellectually gifted students. It is administered by Hunter College, a college of the City University of New York. The only entry point for Hunter is kindergarten. This means that if you get rejected the first time, you can't apply to the elementary school again. At Harvard there is always the option to transfer. Each year, Hunter chooses 25 girls and 25 boys from all of Manhattan to be admitted to its incoming kindergarten class, according to its website. They're hand-selected from a pool of about 2,500 applicants, according to the website Inside Schools. To put that into perspective, that makes the acceptance rate for Hunter 2%. Harvard's undergraduate acceptance rate for 2015 was 6.2%. Prospective Hunter students must first take a StanfordBinet IQ test administered in a formal setting. The school informs parents that they should not prep their children for testing and that they'll be disqualified if there's evidence they prepared a child for the exam. The pool of students is then whittled down to 250 of the children with the highest scores. The remaining applicants are brought in for an evaluation round where they are observed individually interacting with peers and one-on-one with teachers. The Admissions Selections Committee chooses kids without knowing their names or other identifying factors. Story continues For comparison's sake, here is the side-by-side application requirements of Hunter Elementary and Harvard University. Harvard v. Hunter Elementary Stats Hunter is unbelievably difficult to get into for a reason. It has a reputation for providing an amazing learning experience to gifted students all free of tuition charges. And Hunter College High School has an impressive list of notable alumni including Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions More From Business Insider It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky, Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears. Helen Keller, at age 74, on flight around the world, news reports of 5 February 1955 2000 - 2022 24 .- . focus-news.net, () . 24 . 24 . . 24 . Love the article on Gaddaf i Samosa Iyoha Hello from Johannesburg I was amazed to find a website for Africans in Hungary . Looks like you have quite a community there. Here in SA we have some three million Zimbabweans living in exile and not much sign of going home ... but in Hungary??? Hope to meet you on one of my trips to Europe; was in Steirmark Austria near the Hungarian border earlier this month. Every good wish for 2011. Geoff in Jo'burg I'm impressed by ANH work but... Interesting interview... My comment to the interview with his excellency Mr. Adedotun Adenrele Adepoju CDA a.i-- B.Ayo Adams click to read editor's mail We must rise above tribalism & divide & rule of the colonialist who stole & looted our treasure & planted their puppets to lord it over us..they alone can decide on whosoever is performing & the one that is corrupt..but the most corrupt nations are the western countries that plunder the resources of other nations & make them poorer & aid the rulers to steal & keep such ill gotten wealth in their country..yemen,syria etc have killed more than gadhafi but its not A good investment for the west(this is laughable)because oil is not in these countries..when obasanjo annihilated the odi people in rivers state, they looked away because its in their favour & interest..one day!I think from what have been said, the Nigerian embassy here seem to be more concern about its nationals than we are for ourselves. Our complete disregard for the laws of Hungary isn't going to help Nigeria's image or going to promote what the Embassy is trying to showcase. So if the journalists could zoom-in more focus on Nigerians living, working and studying here in Hungary than scrutinizing the embassy and its every move, i think it would be of tremendous help to the embassy serving its nationals better and create more awareness about where we live . Taking the issues of illicit drugs and forged documents as typical examples.. there are so many cases of Nigerians been involved. But i am yet to read of it in e.news. So i think if only you and your journalists could write more about it and follow up on the stories i think it will make our nationals more aware of what to expect. I wouldn't say i am not impressed with your work but you need to be more of a two way street rather than a one way street . Keep up the good work... SylviaHe is an intelligent man. He spoke well on the issues! Thanks to Mr Hakeem Babalola for the interview it contains some expedient information.. We value your privacy. Focus Taiwan (CNA) uses tracking technologies to provide better reading experiences, but it also respects readers' privacy. Click here to find out more about Focus Taiwan's privacy policy. When you close this window, it means you agree with this policy. They will execute us: Ransom deadline set for Canadians held hostage in Philippines Two Canadians held captive in the Philippines for nearly six months have appeared in a new video with a haunting and dire warning.Identifying themselves as John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, the two men were frail and distressed in a video that appeared on Facebook Thursday, as they were forced to plead for the Canadian government to act on the demands on their captors, the militant group Abu Sayyaf.With a large knife held to his neck and wincing in pain, former mining consultant Ridsdel directed his words at the prime minister and the Canadian people.Please do whats needed to meet their demands within one month or they will kill me, they will execute us, Ridsdel said under duress.The Canadian government has got to get off its *** and do what is necessary to get us out of here soon. Weve got one month before this happens, says Hall, lifting his cuffed hands off the ground and gesturing towards Ridsdel as a machete-wielding captor repeatedly runs the dull side of his blade against Ridsdels neck.Ridsdel, 68 at the time he was kidnapped, was once a senior vice president chief operating officer for Calgary-based mining company TVI Pacific. Hall, reported to be 50 years old when he was taken hostage, appears gaunt and with much longer hair in this latest video.The terror group had previously demanded more than $100 million in ransom to release the four captives.In a video posted online in November, Hall said, under duress, he was being held for one billion pesos or CDN $28 million. Its the same demand for each of the other hostages.Global News has reached out to Global Affairs for a response to the demands Abu Sayyaf made in the video, but spokesperson Rachna Mishra said the government would not comment or release any information which may compromise ongoing efforts or endanger the safety of Canadian citizens.The Canadian government names Abu Sayyaf on its list of designated terrorist organizations.Ridsdel and Hall were seized from a marina on the southern Philippines resort island of Samal on Sept. 21.The pair were taken captive along with Halls reported Filipina companion Marites Flor and the marinas Norwegian manager Kjartan Sekkingstad.Sekkingstad identifies the captors as being members of the al Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf and says they are being held in the Sulu islands.Try to meet their demands within 30 days or were all dead, Sekkingstad says before a masked captor sets an April 8 deadline for the ransom.If you think your that your policy is far better for you than the lives of [these] captives, certainly we will do something terrible against [these] captives, he shouts before leading the other machine gun-carrying militants in chanting Allahu Akbar (God is great). Senator Bellemare quits Tory caucus to support Liberal push for non-partisanship After being 'sidelined' in election, Senator Rivard quits Tory caucus The seat count for independent senators continues to grow, with the Honourable Senator Diane Bellemare (Alma, Quebec), and the Honourable Senator Michel Rivard (The Laurentides, Quebec) stepping out of the Conservative Party caucus earlier this week.There are now thirteen independent senators in the Senate, and six of these senators have decided to team up to form a non-partisan working group. That working group is seeking to give independent senators a greater voice in the Upper House while the working group has no official status under existing Senate rules, which the senators describe in a statement as "archaic."These newest independent senators are taking up a less partisan role just as the independent advisory board on Senate appointments is about to offer advice to the prime minister on nominations to fill the first five of the 24 vacancies that have built up in the Red Chamber. The appointment of several Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba senators is expected in a few days.On March 8, Senator Bellemare announced in the Senate chamber that she would be leaving the Conservative Party caucus to sit with the independent benches. Senator Bellemare advised her colleagues that she supported the work of the Government to make the Senate less partisan, and that she feels that she can better support to the Senate's legislative role as an independent.Senator Bellemare was appointed by the governor general on September 6, 2012, on the advice of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P. (Calgary Heritage), then the prime minister, to represent the senatorial district of Alma in Quebec. She brings over two decades of experiencing teaching at the, and several years of experience as the chief executive officer of theAbout an hour after Senator Bellemare's resignation from the Conservative Party caucus, Senator Rivard followed. Senator Rivard indicated that his resignation from the party caucus was fueled by the Conservatives' decision to shun him, and several other Conservative senators, from supporting the party's electoral machine in Quebec during the recent general election.Senator Rivard was appointed on January 2, 2009, on the advice of Mr. Harper as prime minister, to represent the senatorial district of The Laurentides, Quebec. Before his appointment to the Upper House, Senator Rivard was a known Quebec sovereigntist, having served in the Quebec national assembly under the banner of the Parti quebecois, after decades of business experience. About Me Free Cuba Foundation The Free Cuba Foundation is an action oriented youth movement committed to defending human rights, support the Cuban internal democratic opposition, and advocate for the principles of Gandhian non-violence. View my complete profile Many issues surface as I visit with you on your doorstep, when you call or send an email to my office, or when you come to visit your state Capitol. I hear your views on education policy, on wind farms, about water usage and the condition of state parks. As your senator, I hear all your concerns about changes in state policy that will impact you and your family. Of all the items that come up for discussion the number one issue is taxes. This week it was my honor to stand for you on the floor of the Nebraska Legislature and lead the fight to stop a likely tax increase. The March 7, 2016 Fremont Tribune headline said: Bill to allow bonding for Nebraska water projects stalls. The work of Natural Resource Districts, NRDs, is vital to preserving and controlling Nebraskas most important resource water . Those who serve on NRD boards are elected by you to oversee this important aspect of our state. Funds to carry out the mission of the NRDs comes from several sources including federal funds, local municipalities, and state funds. The Tribune stated: The bill (LB344) would have allowed the states natural resources districts to issue general obligation bonds for projects that dont produce revenue, such as flood control and recharging groundwater reserves. General obligation bonds are a loan that is taken out by the NRD and paid back with your property taxes. Your property taxes are already providing funds to the NRD at the level allowed by law. What I worked for six hours to stop was allowing all 23 NRDs across Nebraska from being able to take out a loan without a vote of the people paying the bill. Currently there are more than $32 million in the Water Sustainability Fund available to NRDs which have not yet been allocated or spent, with approximately $11 million additional revenue going into that fund annually. Now is not the time to allow additional funds to be borrowed without your approval. I am assured this bill will return for consideration next year. Please trust that I will continue to fight for your right to decide how your tax dollars are spent, and I will fight to control your property taxes. Many of you have contacted me about the condition of Dead Timber State Recreation Area. This once beautiful spot on Hwy 275 has deteriorated due to overgrowth and lack of upkeep. I am pleased to report that the Director of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has personally toured Dead Timber and told me they are planning for renovations and improvements there. Game and Parks will be meeting with the Scribner Chamber of Commerce to outline plans going forward. Please contact my office any time! As always, I am Honored to Serve Ask Geotripper Is there something about geology that you are curious about? Do you have questions about the scientific aspects of political controversies? I can try to provide a scientist's perspective. Your questions and possible answers could be a springboard to a blog discussion, or they can be private. Anonymity is always assumed. Contact Geotripper at hayesg (at) mjc.edu. DUBAI, March 11, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Young Presidents' Organization (YPO), the world's premier network of chief executives and business leaders, concluded its flagship event, YPO EDGE, in Dubai, where it hosted more than 2,400 senior business leaders from more than 90 countries. Change agents and industry disruptors from different fields shared innovative ideas and business models at the 2016 YPO EDGE. From world leaders and humanitarians, including former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and current Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty, members heard stories of success and failure, high risk and great reward. Other speakers, including Group President of Focus Brands Kat Cole, Founder and Group Chief Executive of The Abraaj Group Arif Naqvi, and Former President of Costa Rica and current President of Carbon War Room Jose Maria Figueres, inspired YPO leaders to deliver impact to the global community in the form of economic opportunity, sustainable environmental change and compassionate leadership creating a deeper appreciation of empathy as a transformative skill. EDGE dialogue focused on current global crises in a series of security sessions led by YPO members including Nancy Aossey, president and CEO of International Medical Corps, who discussed the human rights toll as well as the business implications incited by the current Syrian refugee crisis. "The 2016 EDGE provided the ideal opportunity for YPO members to witness the power of visionary leadership. In a world of increasing uncertainty and social inequality, business leaders, working together with government and civil society, can spur economic growth and create opportunities." said Santiago Sanchez, 2015-2016 international chairman of YPO. "YPO members from diverse background and geographies left Dubai inspired and committed to the principals of idea exchange, inclusiveness and collaboration towards achieving a more prosperous and equitable future." The conference also provided a platform to interact with scientists and inventors who dream of alternate worlds including theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, co-founder of string field theory; Professor Angelo Luigi Vescovi, pioneering neural stem-cell researcher; Andre Borschberg, who is completing the first solar-powered flight around the world; and Jim Kwik, who bounced back from his own brain injury to become an expert on increasing brain power. "YPO EDGE is the world's largest gathering of chief executives. Through dynamic lifelong learning and idea exchange, the EDGE encourages participants to push their boundaries, challenge their way of thinking and stretch their imaginations," said Scott Mordell, chief executive officer of YPO. Past EDGE events have been held in Melbourne, Los Angeles, Istanbul, Singapore, Barcelona, Toronto, Cape Town, Sydney and other major cities and have featured prominent leaders including Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak, Nobel Prize Laureate and President of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi, King Abdullah II and Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson. The 2017 event is slated for Vancouver. END About YPO YPO (Young Presidents' Organization) is a not-for-profit, global network of young chief executives connected through the shared mission of becoming Better Leaders Through Lifelong Learning and Idea ExchangeTM. Founded in 1950, YPO today provides 23,000 peers and their families in more than 130 countries with access to unique experiences, extraordinary educational resources, access to alliances with leading institutions, and participation in specialised networks to support their business, community and personal leadership. Altogether, YPO member-run companies employ more than 15 million people around the world and generate US$6 trillion in annual revenues. For more information, visit www.ypo.org. LISLE, Ill., March 12, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eckrich, the makers of naturally hardwood smoked sausage and savory deli meats, partnered with Safeway and Operation Homefront, a national nonprofit whose mission is to build strong, stable, and secure military families, to kick off a winning race weekend for a Phoenix military family. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/69f52d05-f53a-4338-a45b-15206ab00308 With special guest, NASCAR Hall of Fame driver and co-owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, The King Richard Petty, Eckrich and Petty surprised the Lozano family with race tickets to Sundays event at the track in Phoenix. If meeting Petty and personally being handed tickets to Sundays race wasnt enough, Petty then helped present the family with free groceries for one year from Eckrich. Eckrich, Richard Petty and Richard Petty Motorsports have been partnering to honor U.S. military families since 2012. Petty is NASCARs all-time winningest driver and enjoys giving back to military families. Today continues our partnership with Eckrich and their support of military families, said Petty. Eckrich has always given back to military families and its important we say thanks and honor them. We cant race without their sacrifice. In the grand scheme, this is a small token of our appreciation and we hope they enjoy the race and their free groceries for one year. Staff Sergeant Michael Lozano served in the United States Marine Corp from 1991-2004 and is currently in the United States Air Force Reserve waiting medical retirement. He deployed to Iraq in 2003 and served during Operation Iraqi Freedom I & II. In 2010-2011 he again deployed to Incirlik Airbase in Turkey during Operation New Dawn. In addition to being a mother and a caregiver to Michael, Valery serves as a federal agent and works 40 to 50 hours a week. This is just another example of people out there that care and show us that there is life after combat, said Michael. So, this is a special moment for my family thanks to Eckrich, Safeway and Richard Petty. With Eckrich doing this event with Operation Homefront, it is going to hopefully let other people know that they care and are here to us help out, commented Valery. That makes us feel good and were really thankful for what they did for us today. The surprise is part of the ongoing campaign by Eckrich to honor, thank and support military families through its partnership with Operation Homefront and their Hearts of Valor program. Hearts of Valor is a network of people caring for wounded, ill or injured service members. Operation Homefront supports these caregivers in their own journey of healing by facilitating an online community that provides social connections to other caregivers in similar situations, fostering support groups by geographic area to encourage resource sharing and friendships, and sponsoring annual retreats to provide education on relevant issues. Eckrich, entering the fifth year of partnership with Operation Homefront, has surpassed $1 million in donations since 2012. Eckrich is a brand of Smithfield Foods. Eckrich is proud to partner with Richard Petty Motorsports and Richard Petty to help us honor our military families, said Chuck Gitkin, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Smithfield Foods. Richard has shown his commitment to supporting our campaign and were grateful that he can help us make these events so special for the military families being honored. We also appreciate the support of Safeway as we continue in our mission to thank and honor military families across the country. We thank the Lozano family for their service and sacrifice and are proud to present them with one year of free groceries. For more information about Eckrich, please visit www.eckrich.com. About Eckrich Founded by Peter Eckrich in 1894, Eckrich has a rich heritage starting from a small meat market in Fort Wayne, Ind. Through it all, Eckrich meats have been recognized for their great taste and supreme quality, craftsmanship, care and pride. For more information, visit www.eckrich.com. About Smithfield Foods Smithfield Foods is a $15 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Farmland, Armour, Cook's, John Morrell, Gwaltney, Nathan's Famous, Kretschmar, Margherita, Curly's, Carando and Healthy Ones. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com. About Operation Homefront A national nonprofit, Operation Homefront leads more than 2,500 volunteers with nationwide presence who provide emergency and other financial assistance to the families of service members and wounded warriors. Operation Homefront has provided assistance to thousands of military families since its inception in 2002. Recognized for superior performance by leading independent charity watchdog groups, nationally, 92 percent of Operation Homefronts expenditures go directly to programs that provide support to our military families. For more information, go to www.OperationHomefront.net. About Richard Petty Motorsports A performance and marketing driven company, Richard Petty Motorsports, co-owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty and successful business entrepreneur Andrew Murstein, is one of the most recognized brands in all of motorsports. With a history of over 200 wins and business partnerships with national and global leaders, today the race operation fields two teams in competition in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with drivers Aric Almirola and Brian Scott. Almirola will return to the iconic No. 43 Ford with partners Smithfield Foods, STP, United States Air Force and the Fresh From Florida campaign. Scott will make his debut with the team and drive the Petty Family No. 44 Ford. Albertsons Companies, Shore Lodge, Twisted Tea and GoBowling.com will join Scott as he competes for Rookie of the Year in his first full-time season in the Sprint Cup Series. Richard Petty Motorsports will also field the No. 43 Ford Mustang in the NASCAR XFINITY Series with driver Jeb Burton, who will compete for Rookie of the Year in his first full-time season with partner J. Streicher. The team is headquartered in Mooresville, N.C. Outline without work hard make sacrifices all honest not to brag committed burnout the minute don't really want an MBA tough questions any don't all exactly you same and absolutely not exactly actually do fundamental feel many after time I saved learned strongly before same must why bike drive almost never Attachment: File comment: DOC Version of Obscure SC Rules GMAT SC Trivia.doc [61 KiB] Downloaded 250 times To download please login or register as a user Attachment: File comment: PDF Version of Obscure SC Rules GMAT SC Trivia.pdf [140.26 KiB] Downloaded 305 times To download please login or register as a user before and not supported any of that desperately 0) Introduction1) GMAT is Not a Big Deal2) Reality Check3) Study Habits4) Do Practice Exams5) Score History and Mini-Debriefs6) Resources7) General8) Quant9) Verbal10) AWA11) IR12) Do a Debrief After Each Exam13) Advice for GMAT Club14) Thanks0) IntroductionI am an African native English-speaker engineer working at a technology company. I want to pursue an MBA to help transform Africa (especially Sub-Saharan African) into the economic titan that I envision it to be. I mention the fact that I am an African to encourage other Africans that with hardwork and dedication, they too can score highly on the GMATcutting corners or even worse cheating on the exam.1) GMAT is Not a Big DealI'm sure that the following point won't be heeded by many here especially those who have worked very hard on the GMAT but have not seen results commensurate with their hard work.The point is that the GMAT does not matter as much as people think it does unless one's GPA is not that stellar. The whole point of the GMAT is to segregate people into distinct groups based on their scores and to show that one can perform at a certain academic level in school; it has little to do with being a business leader at an organization. In my humble opinion, the only sections that seem to be relevant to being a business leader are IR, CR, AWA, and RC decreasing in relevancy in that order. We have professional editors for SC and computer programs for Quant. Strengthen other parts of your application if your GMAT score is not that great (720+).2) Reality CheckThe following may make some of you upset, but it is only for the best, and has worked for me.Unless you have been blessed with natural talents for performing well on the GMAT, you need toto own this exam and must. This means eliminatingpotential distractions such as Facebook, TV, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Vine. I have found that all of these things especially TV are just pure time wasters. You won't be less "informed" not knowing what frivolous act Kim Kardashian engaged in, what jokes Obama made, or what exotic place your friend visited for the nth time. On the contrary, you will find out that your life will be more productive as a result. Bewith yourself and understand that as a future CEO, executive, or world leader, you won't and shouldn't have time for these things.Trust me, I know about the hard work part, and the many small things that one misses while studying for the GMAT. As a Christian, I deal with my problems through prayer in addition to hard work. Because I wasn't seeing much progress, I chose to fast 7 hours one Saturday each month for several months before I saw improvement in Quant and CR. The eureka moments came frustratingly slowly, but I am grateful that they came. I had to delay spending time with my friends and family, because of the GMAT. I also had to cut down my time working out at the gym and thus frustratingly gained fat and lost the hard-earned muscle that I built. In total, I did 1783 Verbal questions, 604 LSAT LR Questions, 561 LSAT RC Questions, and 1343 Quant questions. Note that these don't include questions I did when I wasn't home. This is, but to show you howI was to the GMAT.Of course in order to prevent, you should also schedule weekends for playing hard (watching a movie, going out with friends, etc.), but don't overdo it and have the discipline to get right back to GMATthat weekend is over.If you don't want to work hard for this exam, it most likely means that you eitheror dislike standardized exams. If you don't mind standardized exams, at this point, you should ask yourself thesuch as why do I want an MBA? Is it to allow my parents to continue living vicariously through me? Is it just because my friends are pushing me to do it? Is it just because it's another box to check? If the answer toof these questions is "yes", you most likelywant an MBA and should stop your journey now, because you will most likely be miserable doing the MBA and will not work hard if you are admitted to a program. If the answer toof these questions is "no" and you dislike standardized tests, you need to swallow this dislike and muster up the will to work hard anyway. You must understand that some things on the path to one's passions and dreams may not be glamorous and must get done.Reference: https://lawschooli.com/harsh-truths-tha ... -the-lsat/ 3) Study HabitsBuild good habits when taking real questions (timing and strategy such as scanning through SC choices and knowing when to give up on questions). This is very important, because when you take the real exam, your mind will switch to auto-pilot, and however you've answered practice questions will bethe same way you will answer real exam questions. With that being said, find the study habit that works for; there is no one right way to study. You are a unique being and things that work for someone else might not work for you.4) Do Practice ExamsYou need to do practice exams to build stamina for your actual exam, and to harden your study skills. I suggest that you take at least 4 practice exams each weekend before the weekend of your actual exam. These exams need to be done under theconditions as the GMAT exam. This means having an 8-minute break and penalizing yourself for exceeding the break time. I thought that time over the break would be deducted from time used for reading the directions first and then time used for answering questions in the section, but it is deducted from time on the section only (typical of GMAC). You would also be wise to take the exam on the pad that is given on the GMAT. sells both the pad and pen as a unit on Amazon. Unfortunately, the pen can't be ordered separately once it runs out, so you will have to order both the padpen even if you want just the pen.5) Score History and Mini-Debriefs09/14/11620 (Q44, V31, AWA 4.5)I was interested in management consulting and wanted to take the GMAT to augment my poor SAT scores and poor GPA. I studied half-heartedly for 2.5 months and really had no idea what I was doing. I only found out about GMATClub about 1 month towards the end of my prep. I struggled with a lot of Quant concepts such as remainders, probability and combinatorics, and inequalities. For SC, I only eliminated answer choices based on SVA rules. Interestingly, I foolishly still expected a Q50+, V40+.09/16/14690 (Q47, V37, IR3)I was still mentally tired after taking a practice exam 3 days ago. This really hurt me in Verbal, and I could not even read the last question, because of fatigue. Quant owned me, because I sacrificed accuracy for speed and could not answer questions about remainders or absolute value. I had no idea how to handle SC, because I did not see splits available; the questions seemed fundamentally different from those in GMATPrep. Even though I thought that I was an RC master at this point, I forgot how to answer INFER questions. I was completely blindsided by this exam.11/08/14610 (Q47, V28, IR7)I took my time during this exam in Quant and assumed that I did well, and was shocked at the score. In Verbal, I spent too much time on an RC question that I had to rush through the remainder of the section, but didn't expect so low of a Verbal score.12/20/14700 (Q50, V34, IR5)I was tired before this exam and woke up at 04:30 even after taking Benadryl and NyQuil to knock me out. I really didn't feel that I performed that well in Quant, but I was ahead of time, so I was surprised at the Quant score. I'm thankful to God that I had a lot of time left in the section, because I ran out of room on my pad and it took 45 seconds for the Pearson employee to see me trying to get her attention. It was after this exam that I believed that I could actually score a Q50 and aimed to do so on subsequent exams. In Verbal, I struggled a lot in CR especially with ASU questions, I couldn't really understand RC passages, and I didn't really know how to tackle SC questions. Needless to say, I bombed the section.08/08/15700 (Q49, V36, IR6)I had a lot of insomnia before this exam and because of that, I could not understand Quant word problems, CR, or RC at all. I basically had to guess on such questions. I expected a lower score given my mental condition.08/28/15690 (Q48, V35, IR5)I figured out that SC was pulling my score down and spent the next 20 days reviewing it. I took this around Friday afternoon right after taking a half-day of work. I suggest that you don't do this, because I was tired midway in Quant and thus was tired for the rest of Verbal. Again, I did not understand how to tackle SC questions and flopped as a result. However, interestingly, CR was the section that pulled my score down.12/28/15750 (Q49, V42, IR2)Before taking this exam, I resolved to owning Verbal by creating strategies for each subsection. After months of laziness, I invested time in vertically scanning answer choices and focusing on the meaning rather than reading each answer choice left to right and focusing on grammar. I don't know whether that actually paid off given the circumstances surrounding my exam.This literally was a miracle test. I went to bed at 22:00 and woke up at 02:17 and couldn't go back to bed again no matter how hard I tried. When I arrived at the test center, I suddenly had diarrhea and had to take about 15 minutes getting rid of it. When I felt better, I decided to start my exam. Needless to say, I was tired when doing the AWA and wrote 5 weak paragraphs. I then began IR, but the diarrhea returned. I rushed through the section to get enough time to use the restroom, so that my performance on Quant wouldn't be impacted. I clicked submit on IR with 10 minutes remaining, assuming that I would have 10 minutes plus the break time to use the restroom, but after clicking submit, I only had the break time. I dashed to the restroom for my last chance to empty my bowels. It finally worked, and I was able to do Quant diarrhea free!Verbal was a different animal; RC was very difficult but SC was manageable, so I thought that I was performing poorly. Because of my frustration with the insomnia and the fact that I had to take the exam many times, I just answered wildly on RC. I was extremely shocked at the score, because of how I took the exam. I bought the ESR and saw that Verbal was CR 51, RC 34, and SC 46. I have never seen anything like it. I clicked accept scores and walked out in complete shock and thanks to God for allowing me to reach my target score.01/15/16730 (Q50, V39, IR2)Even though I reached my target score in my last sitting, I decided to retake the exam because of the extremely low IR score.This was the only exam that I took in which I was well-rested. IR was the hardest section, and because I had foolishly spent 5 minutes on the first question and a lot of time on other questions, I was forced to skip 3 questions in a row. I was told that IR was not an adaptive section, so skipping questions like this was not a problem. I focused on owning the last 3 questions on the IR section and did so, so I was surprised at the low IR score. Quant was a breeze. I knew that I was faring well, because I owned each question that came to me. I was beating the clock and banked time to address hard questions. I foolishly repeated the mistake I made in IR in Verbal and thus spent too much time on SC questions in which I could not figure out the answer for the life of me. Because of this, I had to rush through questions that I knew that I would have owned given time.After this exam, I contacted the GSB, HBS, and Sloan admissions offices in order to task them about the effect of a low IR score. HBS gave me a vague response, but GSB and Sloan told me that it really does not matter compared to the overall GMAT score, and that they look at the entire package. At this point, I realized that my GMAT journey had finally come to an end. Thank God for His faithfulness and grace over the last 28 months.6) Resources2012, 2015 (electronic version), 2016* This is needed especially for SC to build a recognition of GMAT's voice for correct and incorrect answers. As many people have harped on, there are not that many 700+ questions in this book, so you need to look at other sources such as GMATPrep and Tests.* Explanations for SC and for some Quant questions especially for the hard questions are hit or miss, because you need to remember that GMAC's main goal for the GMAT is to order people based on their scores. People who see the true errors (the 700+ scorers) will figure it out and will be able to solve similar problems on test day and those that don't (the non-700+ scorers) will not and will most likely miss it on test day. You'll definitely see this in SC when answer choices with comparison or modifier errors have explanations that say "awkward or wordy". See https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... tml#p71580 * If you want to perform well in Quant, you need to get to the point where you can solve 95% of these questions in 115s or fewer, because most of them are in the low 600s.GMATPrep 2 Free Tests* These exams except for SC resemble what one would see on the actual exam.GMATPrep Exam Pack 1* These exams most resemble the GMAT. Some of the Quant questions are easy though.GMATPrep Question Pack 1* Resembles what one would experience on the GMAT; answer explanations for SC and some Quant questions are hit or miss.GMATClub Verbal Tests* These are terrible and can hurt your score! I scored a V28 on one, which was far from most of my scores on any of my actual GMAT exams or GMATPrep exams.GMATClub Quant Tests* These are too hard and are not needed for scoring a Q50 on the exam. The best I scored while taking these is a Q43.Verbal and Quant Guides* Good for foundational knowledge; if you want to own Verbal especially SC, you need to be familiar with obscure rules, which you gain an understand of by doing hard problems and reviewing explanations by experts such as Ron Purewal and Stacey Koprince.Tests* Quant is too hard and Verbal is easy; other than that, these tests allow you to simulate an exam experience.VeritasPrep Tests* I bought these, because I had taken the exams several times and didn't want to continue seeing inflated scores.* IR is horrible; it is more like an extension of Quant.* Quant is decent but several questions test the exact same concept, an event that is rare on the exam.* Verbal especially SC is not that good.The Next 10 Actual Official LSAT PREPTESTS (29-38) and 10 New Actual, Official LSAT PREPTESTS (52-61)* These were gold for CR and RC practice. The questions are written in the same language as the GMAT and are useful if you need extra practice for CR and RC. The LSAT is a tougher exam than the GMAT, so don't worry if you don't perform at a high level for a big chunk of the questions. You should take each relevant LR or RC question under GMAT time limits (average of 2 minutes). You should also ignore LR questions that are not tested in CR such as Sufficient Assumption, Principle, Least Likely to Be True. Also, ignore questions that have arguments that depend on Conditional Logic. Please keep in mind that the LR arguments are typically shorter than the GMAT arguments, but are usually more complex than them.* Explanations for PrepTests 29-38 https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/forums/ (Know that the response time on these forums can be months or years, but most common questions have already been answered)* Explanations for PrepTests 52-61Bible* This gives you a good foundation for answering CR questions, but you must know that it is a very-watered down version of the same book for the LSAT. It seems as if the authors were too lazy to remove conditional logic and the extensive list of flaws (for the flaw question type) from the book, items that wereessential to CR.The LSAT Trainer: A remarkable self-study guide for the self-driven student* In hindsight, I would have purchased this book in order to perform well on CR and RC over Bible. Of course, one should ignore the items not related to the GMAT such as Sufficient Assumption, Principle, Match The Flaw, and Logic Games (weirdly enough, Logic Games are sometimes tested in IR).Thursdays with Ron* I watched about 10 of these videos (mostly for CR and SC), but didn't find any of them useful.Forums* GMATClub (awesome for Quant;)* Forums (awesome for Verbal and for Quant)Online Courses* Only useful for learning basic sentence correction rules.* I found the 700+ Quant questions too easy.* This didn't help me for CR whatsoever.* Some lessons have mistakes.* As far as SC goes, the explanations from arethe same as those in the . I can't remember how many times the "expert" stated how an SC choice is "so awkward that it should be shot", mirroring what the GMAT explanation stated albeit with more emotion.GMAT Pill* The Verbal Pill is a complete waste of money and the app stinks big time. Zeke stated that you don't have to remember rules for SC and for a while I believed that until I realized that youhave to memorize rules for SC. The only useful piece of information that I gained from this course is how to tackle RC questions.* The SC Pill is a complete waste of money and Zeke basically renames grammatical elements such as modifiers to descriptors. His treatment of parallelism and comparisons is so elementary that it can't be used to tackle hard SC problems in those categories.* This course is designed for non-natives.* I do commend 's emphasis on understanding the meaning of a sentence on first read.7) GeneralYou must focus on understanding core concepts before touching official GMAT questions and definitely before touching GMATPrep exams. This is especially true for the Quant and SC sections. This is where the strategy guides and Bible come handy. Do the practice questions in those books and redo them until you master the concepts. Specifically for Quant, go to Wikipedia, Khan Academy, and other sites on the web to understandproperties of basic geometric figures, combinations, probabilities, and statistics. For SC, you have much less leeway, because the GMAT's rules on a grammatical property generally disagree with other sources.You have to time yourself when doing these problems, so that you can develop an internal timer when doing questions. This way, you willwhen you are spending too much time on a problem.Know that some questions will take much longer than the average time to solve and some will take less than the average time to solve. That means that some Quant questions will take 3 minutes and some will take 90 seconds and some Verbal questions will take 3 minutes and others will take 60 seconds.8) QuantIn order to perform well in this section, you need to doproblemsyou solidify the concepts. Focus less on whether you solved a problem correctly than on whether you understood all concepts tested. If you solved a hard question correctly but had no idea how, you missed it! If it took you too long to solve a question correctly, you also missed it, because it implies that you did not master the concepts tested.It also pays to learn how other people solved problems. This requires some humility, so swallow your pride and adapt their methods. I had to do this for questions asking how many zeros are in a large number and those asking the unit's digit of a large number, and I can't tell you how muchor how much Iwhen I did so.If you are aiming for a high score, you need to know which types of problems are best suited for solving using algebra, those that are best suited for solving using number picking, and those that are best suited for solving using your knowledge of mathematical properties. You really cannot own Quant unless you have a good grasp of knowing which tool to use. From experience, I have found that a large number of percentage and inequality questions lend themselves to number picking. However, Irecommend that you focus on scoring a Q50 rather than a Q51, because a Q51 is not worth the time investment especially if you don't have a V40+ score. Time spent on achieving a Q51 can be spent increasing one's Verbal score, which matters more to one's overall score than Quant.You need to understand that 99.9% of the time, all the information in the stimulus is needed to solve the problem. This is especially true in DS and for Geometry. I can't tell you how many questions I wasn't able to solve quickly or at all because I neglected information in the stimulus. If the problem contains a circle, square, triangle, or other figure with special properties, it must mean that properties of that figure will be relevant to solving the problem. If a problem says that x is nonnegative, it must mean that 0 cannot be used for determining whether a statement is sufficient or insufficient.For DS, I have found in hindsight that looking at the statementsrephrasing the problem, is helpful to know how to rephrase the problem.Don't be obsessed with probability and combinatorics section, but still have a strong understanding of it. On the real exam, you will see questions from many categories, so at max, you might see 3 problems of this type. Interestingly enough, this is one of the few sections in which theconcept is tested in different ways.9) VerbalOnce you get a high Quant score (Q49+), focus on maximizing your Verbal score, since a higher Verbal score weighs more than a higher Quant score.9.1) SCYoumaster the basic grammar rules to perform well in SC. Any company that tells you that you don't have to do so is cheating you. Also, understandan SC question is wrong; if you eliminate an answer choice, because of some vague reason such as awkwardness or wordiness, you don't understand the true grammatical error and you are cheating yourself.Comparisons* The Comparison question type is just a special case of the Parallelism question type. Other than the fact that answers can be eliminated because of an illogical comparison (comparing an ecosystem of an organism to an organism), most answers can be eliminated because of bad Parallelism or ambiguous Parallelism. This means that there are no such hard and fast rules as "as many X as Y" or "more X than Y". This also means that as weird as it sounds, you can compare verbs to verbs. For example, the following sentence is completely parallel and grammatically correct: More people in Nairobithanto work. The verb "bike" is compared to the verb "drive".VTVF (Verb Tense Verb Form)* This is one of the most difficult concepts to master. You should know the basics of the simple tenses, perfect tenses, conditional tenses, and subjunctive tenses. However, you shoulduse VTVF as the primary reason for eliminating answers, because you could eliminate a correct answer. You should use it as a last resort.Meaning* Meaning-Based questions comprise a greater and more noticeable percentage of GMAT questions more so than any released GMATPrep source would like you to believe. The best way to tackle these questions is to understand the intended meaning on a first read, to eliminate answers based on any easy grammatical issues that you find, so that you have a higher probability of getting the question right, and finally to pick the choice that best conveys the intended meaning of the sentence.Obscure RulesAttached are all of the obscure rules that helped me answer tough SC questions.9.2) CRThis was my Achilles' heel when it came to performing well in Verbal. I couldn't hack the arguments and failed to successfully get questions correct that contained answers that seemed all correct. Because of this, I exhausted all of the official CR material. I generally only got official questions correct, because I remembered the answers to the questions. I was not in a good situation, so to get more practice with CR, I followed the advice at the following site http://poetsandquants.com/2014/10/05/us ... l-mastery/ and used the LSAT LR questions. I not only had an endless supply of LR questions but also had lots of expert answers to past LSAT questions stored in LSAT forums. This was also useful for my nemesis in CR: necessary assumption questions. I needed lots of practice for this, so I was grateful for the large number of questions available to answer.9.3) RCRead and understand the passagelooking at the questions. Reading the passage first will give you a map of the information located in the passageit will give you confidence eliminating choices that were not mentioned in the passage. In fact, RC answer choices are generally wrong because they areby information in the passage. That's it! No special rules or formulas to remember.You must also be able to have a decent grasp of the following before you dive into the questions: Purpose, Organization, and Tone.The purpose is the primary reason that the author wrote the passage. Understanding this will help you answer main idea and organization questions within a minute.The organization is about how the passage the is structured. An example of this is: the first paragraph provides background information about a problem, the next two paragraphs talk about two different solutions, and the last paragraph talks about how one solution is preferred. Knowing the organization will help answer organization and main idea questions and provide you with a map of where important details are located.The tone is about how the author feels about the main point or about his or her critics. This can easily be seen through the author's word choice such as "critic A falsely assumes", "critic B fails to consider", "critic C's position is weakly supported". Knowing the tone will help answer questions about the tone of the passage and of what the author thinks about certain entities mentioned in the passage such as his opponents, adherents, or a certain idea.A guide for doing well on RC on GMATClub encourages you to read books or articles to prepare for RC, but I didn't findhelpful. You best prepare for RC by reading RC passages in GMAT or LSAT material, since they are very different from non-GMAT or non-LSAT passages.10) AWAFollow ChineseBurned's guide ( http://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6- ... 64327.html ) and you will excel.11) IRThis section doesn't really matter for admission, however I've heard that consulting companies are starting to require high scores for this section, and you really can't practice for it. The best you can do is review LSAT Logic Games in case you get an ordering problem, and ensure that you don't spend too much time on any one question. I wish I had learned the latter lesson in hindsight.12) Do a Debrief After Each ExamYou should do a debrief after any practice exam you take and especially after real GMAT exams. You should pay attention to which concepts (inequalities, absolute values, meaning-based questions, comparisons, assumptions, CR-like questions in RC, etc.) you had trouble with. Then, you should review them thoroughly.13) Advice for GMATClub13.1) GMATClub needs a Verbal BunuelGMATClubneeds to hire a Verbal counterpart to Bunuel, because it seems that most members of this site struggle with Verbal yet perform extremely well in Quant. However, interestingly enough, this site is too Quant-focused. Performing well in Verbal in addition to Quant will ensure a high score. Whoever is hired needs to explain Verbal questions (especially tough Verbal questions) at their fundamentals. This is especially important for tough SC and CR questions in which all answer choices look correct.13.2) GMATClub needs to Purge All Questions from Non-Reputable SourcesWe need to stick to Official GMAT or at least reputable unofficial questions such as ; we need to remove all unofficial questions especially for Verbal from the site, because they do more harm than good. I can't stress enough the importance of studying from official sources. One's performance on Verbal especially SC depends on one's understanding of GMAT's voice, so that one can discern a right answer from 4 wrong ones. Using questions from non-reputable sources distorts that voice.14) ThanksI would like to thank Jesus for His grace in granting me understanding on how to tackle tough Quant topics such as COMB/PROB, Absolute Value, and Remainders and the entire Critical Reasoning section.I would like to thank my family and friends for all of their prayers, support, and endless supply of home-cooked food throughout this long journey.I would like to thank Bunuel for his extensive Quant explanations, VeritasPrepKarishma for her witty Quant explanations, Ron Purewal for all of his ingenious Verbal and even Quant explanations, StaceyKoprince for all of her clever Verbal explanations, and bb for creating this awesome free resource that is GMATClub. Profile Eval Request- Military Officer [ #permalink Hello Veritas Prep, First, I would just like to thank you for your study materials. I used a lot of the materials that you all offer and was able to get a GMAT score I was satisfied with on my first try with only a month of preparation. I have recently decided to make the transition from the military (Army Officer- Captain) to business school, and would really appreciate a profile evaluation. I am targeting programs such as Darden and Fuqua, and plan on applying to Wharton as a reach. Please provide feedback on these choices, and direction as to what other programs you think that I should research. I will be applying for the class of 2019. I took the GMAT for the first time yesterday (March 11) and ended up with a Q47/V40 and an IR of 8 for an overall score of 700. I do not have the official AWA score yet. I will potentially be retaking this to try to increase my score to make my application packet a bit more competitive. My undergraduate degree is pre-law (decided to join the military and hold off on law school in 2008 with the collapse of the economy) and I earned a GPA of 3.4 from a reputable (Top 50) public university. Recommendations Recommendations will be from senior military Officers (Up to the ranks of General Officer) with whom I have worked directly for in the past, as well as another individual who has already made the transition from the military to the business world and is currently working as a consultant for one of the top 3 consulting firms. Work Experience I will have 84 months of work experience when I apply. I have had a rewarding career and have been fortunate to be selected to many nominative positions that have allowed me to grow as a leader. These are the highlights: -I am currently assigned as a military intelligence detachment Commander supporting US Army Special Forces operations. I work heavily with other government agencies in order to best support multiple missions around the world. This position is nominative and required a 3-4 month interview process to be selected. I directly manage a team of approximately 15 brilliant individuals in this role. - Graduated US Army Ranger School, which is widely considered the premier leadership school that any branch of the military offers. Other branches of the military routinely send their Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen to this school to develop leadership fundamentals designed for all military environments (both conflict and non-conflict). - From 2013-2014, I was selected from over 200 candidates as the Aide-de-Camp (special assistant) to the Deputy Commanding General of the Division to which I was assigned. For reference, there are three Generals who are overall in charge of approximately 30,000 Soldiers and Non-military personnel in a Division. - In 2013, I was assigned as the executive officer (second in charge) of a Company/team consisting of 180 personnel. I primarily managed the systems and mechanisms to ensure that logistical and maintenance issues were being conducted to a high level and ahead of schedule. In this job, I directly managed a team of 25 individuals. -In 2012, I served as a combat advisor (military intelligence) to the Afghan National Police in one of the most kinetic (combat prone) provinces in Eastern Afghanistan. I received the Bronze Star Medal for this deployment. -I earned the title of distinguished military graduate (3rd in my class of 190 military officers) among my peers from my commissioning source. -I have consistently have rated in the top 5% of Officers within each unit that I have been assigned. Plans for After School Have not yet decided between consulting or general management. Would like to use the MBA as a solid transition from the military to civilian life after serving in the military for 8 years. Thank you all for your time and feedback! And thanks GMAT Club for being such an invaluable resource. Hi munlet me say some thoughts about this question to help you.1) this is not an assumtpion question, because based on two things (the word that at the and of the question stem ND the mood of the question) this is NOT an assumption question but rather an INFERENCE or MUST BE TRUE question.2) I suggest you to to go to this topic and go step-by-step throughout the post to improve you Cr skillsThis is because if on one hand is useful to post here you questions (we are happy to help you) on the other hand if you do not take control, if you do not have the tools to crack the questions (i. e. study a lot) you do not have a clear compass about: where you go, how attack the question, an efficient strategy to use, and so on....I hope you know what I meanNow back to the questionUnder a new clean air proposal, the government has decided to tighten controls on the release of certain toxic chemicals, including benzene, formaldehyde, and other carcinogens, by chemical plants. Ok here we have a fact that the governement wants to make effective The stated purpose of this proposal is to reduce cancers caused by air pollution. Yet, the chemical industry, rather than the government, is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the proposal. here we have the purpose of the proposal and the fact that the industry itself should control the implementation of a plan If the past actions of certain polluters in the chemical industry are any indication of future behavior, the net result of the new proposal will be an increase, rather than a decrease, in carcinogens released into the air. basically here is stated this: IF the industry control all the situation we will not have benefits; the opposite: we will have worst effects. So from this we can deduce that the industry is not able to do nothing by itself(in a few words) The author is arguing that ____. (INFERNCE) (A)no chemical companies can be trusted to follow the clean air proposal too extreme as answer and we are not completely sure of this (B)the chemical industry is responsible for releasing the majority of carcinogens into the air About this statistic we haven't enough indformation (C)allowing self-monitoring for the new clean air proposal will result in the opposite of its intended consequence This is what, precisely, I said in the stimulus. The industry, if it pursues the implementation of the proposal , then the same is not able to do nothing without the engagement of the gov. perfect. correct (D)to ensure effective implementation, the government should always monitor the execution of its proposals Is not what we care about. the goverment (E)benzene and formaldehyde are two of the most hazardous cancer-causing chemicals The chemicals are not our concern C is indeed the correct answerHope this helps you to comprehend better the whole situation_________________ Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog, where you can find restaurant and hotel reviews, tried-and-tested recipes as well as gardening and parenting posts.For hotel / food reviews and collaborations, please contact me at goodyfoodies@live.com The Gorilla Radio archive can be found at: www.Gorilla-Radio.com. G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in State and Corporate media. Gorilla Radio airs live Thursdays between 11-12 noon Pacific Time. Airing in Victoria at 101.9FM, and featured on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca and www.pacificfreepress.com. And check out Pacific Free Press on Twitter @Paciffreepress Chelsea residents are about to lose the longtime Associated Supermarket on West 14th Street and 8th Avenue, after the building's landlord served the market a $168K monthly rent hike. But they're not letting their grocery store bite the dust without a fight, and elected officials and community members are hosting a rally tomorrow in hopes of saving the store. The Associated has served the neighborhood since 1989, surviving a whole lot of gentrification and the opening of both a Trader Joe's and Whole Foods outpost a few blocks north. But Pan Am Equities, which privately owns the building at 255 West 14th Street, apparently thinks its time for the Associated to gothey increased the grocery store's rent from $32,000/month to $200,000/month. Officials with the store say it will close in May if they cannot renegotiate the lease. Should the grocery store close, elected officials and residents say the neighborhood will be strapped for affordable food. "This supermarket is one the last remaining sources of affordable groceries for residents of Greenwich Village and Chelsea," Council Member Corey Johnson told us in a statement. "No one should be forced to travel long distances to buy food, especially seniors on fixed incomes." Johnson, who will co-host a rally outside the supermarket at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, says that while Pan Am Equities are free to charge whatever rent they wish, residents will suffer so the landlord can make an extra buck. "We are asking the landlord to come to the table and negotiate a new lease with the store owner in good faith," he said. "Were not going to take this lying down." It's unclear how much of an increase the market will be able to tolerate, but at the very least, store supervisors say the 500 percent increase is not at all feasible. "The rent we're paying now is almost up to the limit of what we can pay," Joe Falzon, a store supervisor, told DNAinfo. "But even if [the landlord] doubles the rent, we still won't be able to [pay]." Last month, an Associated Supermarket in Washington Heights temporarily managed to stave off eviction after a Walgreens attempted to move into the site. The landlord agreed to renegotiate a rent hike thanks to community efforts to prevent the store's closure. The police are hoping the public can help them find the SUV driver who slammed into a man on a Manhattan sidewalk last week. According to the NYPD, on March 4th at 9:39 p.m., "a dark colored SUV, bearing a partial New York State license plate of 'GSP', was heading westbound on Christopher Street when it mounted the sidewalk and struck a 40 year-old male." The SUV driver fled in his car before officers arrived. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital for injuries to his torso. Police released video (above) of the SUV, and the driver is wanted for leaving the scene of an accident. Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said earlier this week that while Vision Zerothe plan to eliminate traffic deaths by 2024was a "great goal," he wasn't optimistic. "We're not going to get to zero," he said. "As long as we have humans who are walking and riding, bicycles and carsas long as we have people, we will have crime." We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today A 25-year-old man is dead after apparently jumping out of a window at the Four Seasons Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, according to police. The NYPD tells us they were called to the hotel, located at 57 East 57th Street, at around 3:05 a.m. this morning. There, they found the victim unconscious and unresponsive, with injuries consistent with a fall from an elevated level. He was transported to Bellevue Hospital and pronounced dead. The victim, who was from Maryland, has not yet been identified. It was a young kid, a restaurant worker at the hotel told the Post. He hit the tree outside and broke a branch before smashing on the ground. In December, 20-year-old college student Connor Cummings was killed after he fell from the roof of the Four Seasons. Cummings, a photographer, was apparently scaling the midtown Manhattan hotel with a friend to get a photo when he fell. The Post reports that the victim was a guest at the hotel. Police say the investigation is ongoing. If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide: do not leave the person alone; remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt; and call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional. Next Tuesday, Christie's will auction off an impressive collection of Indian art, minus two items: federal agents seized two ancient artifacts from the auction house on Friday, having traced them to notorious smuggler Subhash Kapoor, who's said to have smuggled over $100 million in rare artifacts. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), special agents in Homeland Security Investigations worked with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, as well as the Indian government and Interpol, to identify and seize the stolen artifacts, which were included in Christie's catalogue for The Lahiri Collection of ancient and modern Indian and Himalayan art, set to be auctioned off during next week's Asian Art Week. The artifacts are both sandstone, dating back to the eighth and tenth centuries. The older piece is a panel that depicts Revanta, a minor Hindu deity, with an entourage of three horseback riders, and is valued in Christie's catalogue at $200,000-$300,000. The tenth century piece is a statue of Rishabhanatha, a god of the ancient Indian religion of Jainism; that piece is valued at $100,000-$150,000. As of Friday afternoon, both pieces were still listed in the online catalogue. Kapoor used to be an art dealer in Manhattan, and owned a gallery on Madison Avenue called Art of the Past, the New York Times reported last year. He was arrested in India in 2011, and American authorities have said that he's the most ambitious antiquities smuggler in U.S. history: he's thought to have smuggled 2,622 items, worth $107.6 million and mostly confiscated in Manhattan and Queens. One Homeland Security official described him as having "basically created a black-market Sothebys." Kapoor is awaiting trial in India, and denies that he's done anything illegal. Through Operation Hidden Idol, ICE is trying to return Kapoor's stolen artifacts to Indiathe two seized from Christie's are the latest that have been recovered. Museums in Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Ohio have turned over items to the feds, and another 15 museums have identified items from Kapoor but want to see proof of their illegality before turning them over, according to the NY Times. Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. said that "every year, fine art collectors from around the world flock to New York for Asia Week, where they spent a reported $360 million last year on Asian antiquities and art...With high demand from all corners of the globe, collectors must be certain of provenance before purchasing." A Christie's spokesperson said that the auction house is cooperating with the authorities on their investigation, and said that had they known the items were smuggled, they certainly wouldn't have purchased them. "Under no circumstance would Christies knowingly offer a work of art where there are valid concerns over provenance," the spokesperson said. "Government officials have informed us that the evidence they uncovered...was not publicly available and, therefore, could not have been accessed by Christies for vetting purposes. This is one of the difficulties the art market faces in vetting antiquities...These can be difficult issues, and Christies has for some time now sought to actively engage with all affected parties to find fair solutions." Now that Starbucks has successfully conquered Manhattan and colonized Williamsburg, it's ready to vanquish any small business that gets in its way. The corporation has enlisted a squadron of lawyers to take down a small Queens pizzeria, which appears to have been selling Starbucks coffee in a manner that infringes on the franchise's copyrights. Those big-time lawyers took the time to put together a 175-page lawsuit, filed Thursday in Brooklyn federal court, which alleges that the Flushing-based Phil & Sons Restaurant & Pizzeria has been advertising that it sells Starbucks coffee and is serving the coffee in cups with the Starbucks siren logo. The valiant attorneys sent two cease and desist orders last fall, and also sent someone to visit the pizza joint in February, where that brave voyager discovered that the high-stakes scam was still underway. The suit includes evidential pictures taken during that visit, showing paper coffee cups with the Starbucks logo; a sign in the window that advertises Starbucks coffee; a paper printout of "Starbucks coffee" beverages above the espresso machine; and several bags of Starbucks grounds sitting atop the machine. Damning stuff, though it's not clear why anyone would go to the trouble of advertising Starbucks coffee in their establishment in the first place, given that the stuff tastes more like twice-burnt, watered-down tar than actual coffee. Starbucks is now offering a "prayer for relief," according to the suit, and demanding that Phil & Sons write a check for all the profits they've accrued from selling Starbucks coffee. The franchise is also suing for four counts of damages. In 2014, Starbucks similarly muscled up against a small California cafe that was using the Starbucks logo on some items and dressing its employees in Starbucks-green aprons. Starbucks wound up winning over a million dollars in damages in that suit, and it appears that the deviant cafe in question, Cafe Nu, is no longer in business. Phil & Sons declined to comment when reached by phone today. But their Flushing location is open for business today, and serving some delicious-looking pizza. The incriminating Starbucks items aren't on their online menu, but a pie goes for $24, so order upthey might need the funds. "exceptionally terrific" - Blawg Wisdom "A protein-laden dose of big thinking on criminal justice reform." - Evan Smith, Editor-in-chief and publisher, The Texas Tribune "A powerful and well-researched site." - The Austin Chronicle GFB is "an indispensable handle if you're interested in criminal justice in Texas." - Emily Bazelon, Slate " Grits is the first thing I read every morning and I learn something every single time." - Pam Colloff, ProPublica/NY Times Magazine "plenty of biting commentary and credible research" - San Antonio Current Scott Henson is "one of the nations finest criminal-justice policy wonks." - Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic Grits for Breakfast "is the best blog about criminal justice in Texas" and "as usual extremely fair" - Erica Grieder, The Economist "the best coverage of criminal justice in the entire state" - Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly I respect the work Scott does and appreciate his thoughtful and extensive coverage of Texass criminal justice system Jim Bethke,"Grits for Breakfast has done a terrific job covering Texas prison overcrowding issues." - Doug Berman, Sentencing Law & Policy "the indispensable blog on criminal justice and law enforcement in Texas" - Marie Gottschalk, author of 'Caught' "plugged in and well written" - DallasBlog "I always tell people interested in these issues that your blog is the most important news source, and have had high-ranking corrections officials tell me they read it regularly." - Scott Medlock, Texas Civil Rights Project "a helluva blog" - Solomon Moore, NY Times criminal justice correspondent "Congrats on building one of the most read and important blogs on a specific policy area that I've ever seen" - Donald Lee, Texas Conference of Urban Counties GFB "is a fact-packed, trustworthy reporter of the weirdness that makes up corrections and criminal law in the Lone Star State" and has "shown more naked emperors than Hans Christian Andersen ever did." -Attorney Bob Mabry, Conroe "Grits really shows the potential of a single-state focused criminal law blog" - Corey Yung, Sex Crimes Blog "I regard Grits for Breakfast as one of the most welcome and helpful vehicles we elected officials have for understanding the problems and their solutions." Tommy Adkisson, Bexar County Commissioner "dude really has a pragmatic approach to crime fighting, almost like hes some kind of statistics superhero" - Dirty Third Streets "concise, knowledgeable, in-depth and sometimes counter-to-prevailing wisdom"- Rob Patterson,"Scott Henson's 'Grits for Breakfast' is one of the most insightful blogs on criminal justice issues in Texas." - Texas Public Policy Foundation "Nobody does it better or works harder getting it right" David Jennings, aka "Big Jolly" "I appreciate the fact that you obviously try to see both sides of an issue, regardless of which side you end up supporting."Kim Vickers,Grits for Breakfast "has probably broken more criminal justice stories than any TX reporter, but stays under the radar. Fascinating guy."Maurice Chammah,"unrestrained and uneducated" John Bradley, Former Williamson County District Attorney, now former Attorney General of Palau "our favorite blog""Scott Henson ... writes his terrific blog Grits for Breakfast from an outhouse in Texas." - To the People 2004 Koufax Award Winner:Best Single Issue Blog Winner of Blawg Review's 2006 Equal Justice Award Public Defender Investigators' 2007 "Editors Choice Award" 2009 Austin Chronicle 'Best of Austin' Award Ranked among Top 3 most influential independent law blogs in North America, 2012 Well, I don't wear a Stetson But I'm willing to bet, son, That I'm as big a Texan As you are. News Taliban kill six Daesh members in raid in Afghan capital The Daesh members killed in the raid on their hideout were involved in two major attacks in recent weeks, one on a city mosque and the other on a tutoring institute in which dozens of female students were killed, said the spokesman. Grain trading since early 1980's... specializing in grains and protein meals for the feed industry in Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Consulting on grain purchases, contracts, disputes, arbitration and mediation. Broad experience in all matters GAFTA contract and arbitration related.. Hands Across the Sea is a non-profit organization serving children and their families in Haiti. Founded and run by Karen Huxter, HATS includes an orphanage, a school serving children from preschool to grade 10, serving over 400 children, many of whom are sponsored by individual donors in Canada and the U.S. The children receive a high-quality nutritional drink and a hot lunch each school day. Finally, HATS-Haiti provides ongoing support to families in the community with financial aid in times of crisis, nutrional support, clothing distribution, and assistance with medical costs at the nearby hospital. The prophecy is more than seeing into the future. For the prophecy sees without the element of time. For the prophecy sees things as they were, as they are, and as they always shall be. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy BLUNT, S.D. Like a cathedral made without hands, the hill called Medicine Knoll (Paha Wakan to the Dakota people) rises above the plain a few miles east of Pierre, S.D. On top is the evidence that Native Americans came to the site to practice what is possibly the area's oldest known religion. Near the steeper north side of the knoll is a stone effigy in the shape of a rattlesnake formed by two lines of stones. Including the contours of its body, the snake stretches a distance of 328 feet, modern archaeologists say. Royal Runge, the previous owner of the site, said he believes the site to be at least 400 years old or older based on a nearly perfect arrowhead found at the site that archaeologists dated to about 1500 to 1675 AD. But no one knows who made that stone effigy or for what purpose. "It is a ceremonial ground, no doubt about that," Runge said. But the significance is lost in time. Linea Sundstrom, an archaeological consultant who studied South Dakota's boulder effigies and wrote a report about them for the South Dakota State Historical Society, noted in her 2006 report that of the seven snake effigies that have been found in South Dakota, six are on the east side of the Missouri River near Pierre. They could be shrines associated with corn growing, or they could serve some other purpose. They might even have been shrines to pray for safe passage over the Missouri River, since the Pierre/Fort Pierre area was a crossing on an ancient trade route. Whatever the purpose of those effigies, the Dakota people later used the same site for religious rites. Vine Deloria Jr., in a book called "Singing for a Spirit: A Portrait of the Dakota Sioux," tells that Deloria's great-grandfather, a member of the Yanktonais Sioux, did his vision quest on top of Medicine Knoll in 1831 at about age 16 while his family camped in a draw below the northeast side of the butte. The Deloria account also makes it clear that the Dakota knew of a snake effigy, "a long twisting trail of rocks arranged to resemble a rattlesnake" is how he describes it, and thought of it as very old already in 1830. Paha means "hill" or "knoll," and wakan means "holy" or "sacred," thus the English name, "Medicine Knoll." But Native American religion in South Dakota isn't a fossil set in stones. It's very much alive. More is known about the way the Dakota people worshiped, because there are still those who in the Pierre area who follow the traditional rites of the Dakota people. One of them is Raynard Howe, a descendant of Chief Bone Necklace, who became sober several years ago through a life-changing experience with the traditional ways of the Dakota. Though raised in the Roman Catholic faith, Howe wasn't attending church. He would occasionally go to a Native American sweat lodge ceremony, but not regularly, and he was using alcohol and marijuana. "But about eight years ago, there was an incident that happened with my kids," Howe said. "They were taken away by (the Department of Social Services). I went down to Leonard Crow Dog's Sun Dance at that time. It's down at Rosebud. I stayed down there by myself. I just prayed that I wanted to be with my kids because I missed them. After I came back to Pierre from the Sun Dance, the Department of Social Services called and said that they could come back to me. After that I stopped using. I don't use drugs or alcohol. I stayed sober after that." Howe was moved partly by the emphasis Leonard Crow Dog placed on changing his lifestyle. It was similar to the message Leonard Crow Dog posted a few years later at an online site promoting a Sun Dance in 2012: "Tomorrow we are going to begin the Sun Dance. You need to get your sacred pipe and all your other instruments ready. Those of you who have a particular life style, we are going to break that life style so you can move in new ways. Your prayers are going to take you to a new life. Remember what you are here for. We are here to be Wakan. If you want to be Wakan, you have to act that way otherwise you will never get there." Howe spent four days at that Sun Dance eight years ago. He slept in his car and talked and listened to holy men. He didn't dance that first year. But now he sun dances every year. He goes to sweats as often as he can. He prays for himself and others. "Some people say you dance for the people, so the people will live. It's not for yourself," Howe said. "People know that I sun dance, and they just kind of ask me to pray for them. Tunkashila, Wakan Tanka, that's who I pray to," he said. Tunkashila, he explains, means "Grandfather" a Dakota term for God. And even before he was following the red road, as he calls it, he had the sense that the God of his fathers was protecting him. Once in Bismarck he was stabbed in several places. "I'm still here," Howe said. "Tunkashila watches over you." Native Americans in Pierre who follow other roads, such as the move toward evangelical Christianity, often still express respect for the red road. One of them is Joseph Ashley, a son of the later Vernon Ashley, the Crow Creek Sioux chief who died in November. Joe Ashley said though he was raised in the Episcopal faith, he liked what he found in a charismatic church in New Mexico. "That's kind of been my foundation," Ashley said. "I started in my 20s with this born again, Spirit-filled walk, and here I am in my mid-50s and I still have a lot to learn." From his father, a faithful member of the Episcopal Church, Ashley said he learned there was much to value about Native American ways. "There are a lot of parallels between Native American spirituality and Christianity. A lot of the same values are there," Ashley said. "It's not religion, it's spirituality, it's a relationship with the Creator. It's being humble, it's being generous, it's being compassionate being a good neighbor. They call that wolakota being a good neighbor, treating your neighbor in a good way, living your life in a good way. But the biggest difference is Jesus and the cross. Whereas in Native American spirituality, it's Tunkashila and the pipe, the pipe being the conduit to God. But in Christianity it's Jesus." It's down at Rosebud. SPRINGFIELD Following concerns raised by a since-thwarted proposal to store toxic chemicals at a landfill that sits above the Mahomet Aquifer, state regulators are stepping up monitoring of the drinking water supply for 800,000 Central Illinois residents. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agencys new measures, which include additional groundwater sampling near three landfills, are part of an agreement the agency reached with state Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet. Rose said the new EPA monitoring will help sound the alarm sooner if theres a threat to the public water supply. You can always do more, and you can always do better, he said. The health of the Mahomet Aquifer became a major concern across the region after the owner of the Clinton Landfill sought state and federal permission to store waste from manufactured gas plants and chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The state passed a law last year to prohibit municipal landfills from storing gas plant waste, and landfill owner Peoria Disposal settled a lawsuit brought by communities the aquifer serves by agreeing not to accept PCBs and certain other chemicals without first getting permission from local governments. Despite that success, Rose said he continued to hear concerns from constituents because landfills are responsible for reporting their own groundwater monitoring data. That sort of leaves you with this fox guarding the henhouse problem, he said. For the next three years, the Illinois EPA will take groundwater samples at least four times a year near the Clinton Landfill, the McLean County Landfill and the Indian Creek Landfill in Tazewell County, all of which sit atop the aquifer. Those results will be compared with the landfills own results and made available online. Rose noted that the data will be integrated with state and national groundwater monitoring networks, allowing scientists and the public to keep a better eye on water quality. The state EPA will also compile and post online a list of all active and inactive landfills across the state. The agency is pleased to work with Sen. Rose to demonstrate the benefits of cooperation for a common goal, director Lisa Bonnett said. Performing enhanced monitoring and sharing of the data will ensure the long-term protection and health of this important sole source aquifer." Cem Ozdemir (Head of the Alliance 90/The Greens): As a German citizen of Turkish origin, the Armenian genocide - carried out by the Ottoman Empire at a time when the German Reich was its close ally - has always moved me in particular. On November 15, 2015,the Alliance 90/The Greens presented a resolution to the German Bundestag that would encourage the German state to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. The resolution was originally intended to be passed during the centennial anniversary of the Genocide, 2015. However, the ruling coalition postponed the resolution, agreeing to debate it by April 24, 2016. Cem Ozdemir,the head of the Alliance 90/The Greens, who was a strong supporter of the resolution, stated that he would agree to postponing it as long as the core parts of the resolution stayed intact when it would be reintroduced. This includes the acknowledgment that the massacres that took place in 1915 was in fact a genocide, that Germanys influence in these events would be mentioned, and that the intention of the resolution would be to fosterpositive Armenian-Turkish relations. While the German government has had a history of supporting the recognition of the Armenian genocide, this resolution has garnered some criticism because of its timing. Due to the postponing of the resolution, the debates will now take place around the same time as the EU-Turkey summit. This summit, which started on March 7, is intended to negotiate how Turkey and the EU will respond to the influx of refugees into Europe; such as the increase in aid to Turkey, the ability to deport refugees that do not receive asylum in the EU to Turkey, and the ability to return refugees that are held in international waters to Turkey. Much of the criticism of said resolution revolves around the idea that the timing of it could anger Turkey, and may affect the summit. The following is talk with Henriette Rytz, a foreign policy advisor to Cem Ozdemir, member of the German Bundestag and head of the German Green Party. Before joining his team, she worked as researcher at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik / German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), a Berlin-based foreign policy think tank. Ms. Rytz holds a PhD in Political Science and an M.A. in International Relations from the Free University. In 2005, the Bundesrat made a statement acknowledging the atrocities of the genocide without using the term genocide. Because of this, I would like to ask you what was the motivation behind launching this resolution now? Is it the actual word Genocide that is the most important thing of the resolution, or is it the list of demands stated in the resolution? In 2005, the Bundestag, which is the popular chamber (not the Bundesrat, which is the chamber that represents the German Lander) passed a resolution commemorating the genocide of the Armenians. The word genocide was not mentioned in the body of the resolution but in the appendix servings as an explanatory statement (Begrundung). Ten years have passed, and Turkish civil society has become more open with regard to the Armenian genocide. With the murder of Hrant Dink in 2007, people took to the street and pledged to continue his fight for an open society which would not be in denial of its past. Since then, many discussions, events, commemorations, academic conferences addressing the Armenian genocide have taken place in Turkey. We therefore think that now is the right time to acknowledge what is consensus among historians and other experts that the atrocities committed against the Armenians and other Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire were a genocide. However, labelling the events as genocide is not the only important message the resolution should contain. The resolution should also clearly recognize that Germany was co-responsible and that Germany should strive to improve Armenian-Turkish relations. These are the three points that Mr. Ozdemir and Mr. Kauder, the leader of the ruling CDU party faction, agreed upon at the end of the debate on February 25, 2016. Mr. Kauder promised that the Bundestag would soon pass a resolution containing these three core messages. One of the main arguments for this resolution was the desire for the German government to acknowledge the genocide by the hundred-year anniversary of the genocide. However, it is now 2016, and the hundred-year anniversary is over. Thus, I would like to ask you about why is there a push for the resolution to be passed now? We hoped that following the plenary debate on the hundredth anniversary of the genocide we would soon pass a joint resolution with the other party factions. However, the CDU/CSU and the SPD delayed any action on the issue. In fact, the heads of both factions stopped a joint resolution which we had negotiated with them in the fall. They were apparently afraid that their close relations with Ankara, which Germany needs in the refugee crisis, would be damaged. It is this failed attempt at a joint resolution that we introduced as our resolution (with exactly the same wording) in order to make the CDU/CSU and SPD decide whether they would really be willing to vote against their own resolution. This is the resolution that was debated on February 25, 2016. We did this now because we do not want to let the commemorative year end without a joint resolution. There has been criticism about this resolution because of the upcoming EU-Turkish Pact negotiations. I was wondering if you could elaborate on how founded these accusations are? For example, how do you think this resolution, whether it passes or not, will affect the EU-Turkish Pact? After the plenary debate on April 24, 2015, when speakers from all parties of the German Bundestag spoke unequivocally of genocide, as did the President of the Bundestag, Dr. Lammert, the reaction from the Turkish side was zero. It seems like they care much less about this issue than the CDU/CSU und SPD think they do. The resolution presented a list of demands directed at the Turkish government. Please describe how the Bundestag intends to implement this demands if the resolution is passed. The resolution was written in the spirit of reconciliation. Therefore the resolution aims to encourage the Turkish and Armenian governments to move towards each other, to talk about this difficult shared history, to support research on the issues, and to help find the families of the victim peace and a sense of relief. With this resolution, the Bundestag asks the German government to support this process of reconciliation as much as possible. The German government seems to have hands off policy with Turkey mainly due to the flow of refugees from Turkey to Europe? However, this resolution seems to be a direct contradiction with this policy. Because of this, opposition political parties have stated that Ozdemir is trying to use this resolution and the Armenian Genocide as a partisan issue. What is the political gain of this resolution to Ozdemir and the Greens? How will it affect Turkish German relations if passed? Representatives of the CDU/CSU have argued that the Green Party faction used this resolution as a partisan issue. However, our main goal has always been to pass a joint resolution. The fact that we do not have a joint resolution yet, is not our fault but that of the ruling party factions. As a matter of fact, we did have a draft joint resolution negotiated with the CDU/CSU and SPD but which was stopped by the latter two, not by us. The resolution was written in the spirit of reconciliation. Germany has a very difficult past. In fact, one important message of the resolution is that the Bundestag recognizes that Germany was co-responsible for the Armenian genocide. Germany has learned that a society, a country actually becomes stronger (and not weaker) when it deals openly with its past, no matter how difficult it may be. That is the message that we would like to send to Ankara. Is this resolution in any way related to the refugee issue? If these negotiations fail, and Turkey does not stop the flow of refugees into Europe, the EU stated that they may be forced to close the border. Is it possible that this resolution is a political ploy to attempt to end these negotiations and to close said border? The resolution has nothing to do with the ongoing negotiations with Turkey in the refugee debate. The timing of the debate was decided by the fact that we failed to reach an agreement with the CDU/CSU in negotiations over a joint resolution last fall and that we did not want to end the commemorative year without making another attempt at a joint resolution. The following question was asked of Cem Ozdemir, head of the Green Party. In March 2015, you visited the genocide memorial in Yerevan. Why did you visit the memorial the month before the hundred-year anniversary? What motivated you to do so? What were your impressions? The fate of persecuted religious and ethnic minorities has been of utmost concern to me throughout my political career. As a German citizen of Turkish origin, the Armenian genocide - carried out by the Ottoman Empire at a time when the German Reich was its close ally - has always moved me in particular. I used to have long discussions with my friend Hrant Dink about how building an open society in Turkey requires dealing with this difficult past. His legacy reminds me how important it is to continue this work. I have long wanted to travel to Armenian and visit the memorial. Doing so on the eve of the hundredth anniversary of the genocide and as a member of the German Bundestag, I wanted to encourage my colleagues in the Bundestag and the German government to recognize that it was genocide and that Germany was co-responsible. The visit was deeply moving. Seeing Mount Ararat from the memorial site reminded me of how important it is to bring Armenia and Turkey closer together. Calling it genocide is one thing, bringing Armenia and Turkey closer together, through exchange and open borders, is a much greater challenge that still lies ahead of us. Top Photo: Henriette Rytz, Cem Ozdemir (Interview conducted by Katherine Berjikian, a Birthright Armenia volunteer now working at Hetq) Mher Yenoqyan Hetq Correspondent at Nubarashen Prison Greetings Dr. Selma Eikelenboom, My name is Mher Yenoqyan. I am serving a life sentence in Armenia. As a forensic medical expert you are well aware of the issues involved in my case. When I learnt that Independent Forensic Services IFS, operating in the U.S. State of Colorado and Holland was ready to examine my criminal case and provide an independent forensic conclusion, I immediately agreed. I was convinced that an unbiased approach would lead to an official confirmation of what I have been claiming for some 20 years. Years later, it was the only possible forensic examination since the authorities in Armenia continue to destroy physical evidence. In 2014, my criminal case material was translated, officially notarized, and sent to you in the Netherlands. Your findings were ready after a four month study. In the summary of the findings, you wrote that you werent able to find any proof in the material sustaining that I killed Iosif Aghajanov or that I planned his murder. However, our Prosecutor Generals Office refused to review my case 20 years later based on your findings. Neither did our Court of Cassation. We appealed the Prosecutor Generals refusal in the courts, but to no avail. Armenias legal-judicial system believes that all verdicts handed down in the country are formulated correctly. There is no precedent for a case to be reopened years later and to accept that a judicial mistake has been made. As time passes, I am convinced that such a state of affairs is the result of laziness more than anything else. In my cell, I read about victories of justice that had been delayed for years. Each story gives me hope. I am currently a student at the faculty of law so that in the future I can assist those wrongly convicted. As a prison correspondent for the news site hetq.am, I would like to interview you via email. I hope you will accept my offer. Below, please find my questions to you. Sincerely, Mher Yenoqyan Here are my questions: Studying my case, what general impressions did you have? What struck you as odd or irregular? I have the impression the investigation was not done objectively. The technical findings like the bloodstains on the scene and the injuries of the victim did not support the hypotheses on what might have happened. The statements of Aram Harutyunyan were not supported by the technical findings. The statement of the forensic-medical expert is not in accordance with the scientific knowledge of today. In the forensic exam of my case you noted, The forensic DNA profile of 1996, as well as the examination of fingerprints, were already accessible. According to the documents, such examinations of physical evidence were not conducted. The fact that such exams werent carried out, was absolutely to the detriment of Yenoqyan. Are such oversights the norm in cases examined in the U.S. or Europe? A defendant has the right to a proper investigation. That includes DNA profiling, finger printing examination, forensics medical examination, bloodstain pattern analysis, etc. Those are the norms in any civilized country. You had noted that Aram Harutyunyans fourth testimony, based on which I was sentenced to life imprisonment, doesnt correspond to the forensic findings. You had also noted that the forensic doctors examination doesnt correspond to contemporary science. Do you have any information on the number of court decisions in the U.S. or Europe that were later overturned based on the fact that the scientific methods at the time were outdated? I am sorry, but I have no idea. I only know that is happens regularly. When you first asked me about those involved in my case, it was about the physical evidence. What did you think/feel when you found out that such evidence isnt preserved in Armenia but destroyed? That is very bad indeed. You will probably know the legal rule In dubio pro reo which means that when in doubt they should favor the defendant. Because the evidence was destroyed it is very difficult for you to prove you are innocent, while they should have proved you are guilty. You did not have a fair trial because of this. How is physical evidence preserved in the U.S. and Europe? How are genetic examinations revolutionizing the criminal justice system? The chain of custody is the basis for any criminal investigation. Physical evidence should be taken into custody by the police, categorized and sealed after each investigation for traces. The time they keep the evidence depends on the local police. In Holland, DNA evidence needs to be kept for 30 years. As a result of your professional work, how many wrongfully convicted people have later been absolved and set free? Around 10, that was after they were convicted. We worked numerous cases where we were able to prevent a wrongful conviction. P.S. I am very sorry for your ordeal and I hope one day justice will be served and you will be able to clear your name. Stay safe, Selma (Top photo: Dr. Selma Eikelenboom, Mher Yenoqyan) Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva was charged late Wednesday with money laundering and tax misrepresentation, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said, and prosecutors want him arrested, according to the Guardian. Prosecutors say da Silva allegedly hid his ownership of a seafront penthouse in the beach town of Guaruja from tax authorities, the WSJ and other sources said. Da Silva denies the charges, according to a statement by the non-profit Lula Institute, which said neither da Silva nor his family own any Guaruja apartment. Prosecutors also charged da Silvas wife, Marisa, and son Fabio, among others, in connection with the investigation. Under Brazilian law, da Silva does not formally become a defendant until a judge accepts the charges, the WSJ writes. Cristiano Zanin Martins, Da Silvas lawyer, said the prosecutors do not have a concrete fact to justify criminal charges, in anote posted on the Lula Institute website. The apartment was allegedly built by the engineering group OAS, a company which is accused in a massive corruption scandal at the state-owned oil company Petrobras, according to the Financial Times. Prosecutors say that billions were paid in bribes in order to obtain contracts with Petrobras and that some of the money made its way to da Silvas Workers Party, said Deutsche Welle. Prosecutors are investigating whether some of the apartments were used by OAS as bribes, the Financial Times said. Da Silva was briefly detained and questioned last week after police raided his home and several associated buildings in relation to the Petrobras investigation, the Guardian reported. Fallout from the investigation has toppled a string of business and political figures, and has also affected current President Dilma Rousseff. She has denied any knowledge or involvement in the scheme. The Workers Party may be thinking of ways to protect da Silva from arrest. Workers Party President Rui Falcao apparently confirmed that a proposal was made to offer da Silva a ministry post in the Rousseff government, and it was up to Lula to accept it or not, according to the Wall Street Journal. A government post would guarantee greater legal protections. occrp.org Welcome to Home of the Sherlocks blog Wanting to share my research of the Irish side of my family -- the Sherlocks (from County Meath) and the Chambers (from County Mayo) -- with family members and others, I thought a blog might be the perfect vehicle. I welcome your comments and stories. I have decided to increase the breadth of my blog to also include my German relatives -- the Nebgens and Homrichs. I am hoping that I am not breaking any blogging rules with this increase in scope. It possibly may even make it easier for family members to follow along. Here's to hoping that it turns out well! You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Heres how members of Wisconsins Senate delegation voted on major issues this week. The House was in recess. STEPS AGAINST PAINKILLER, HEROIN CRISIS: Voting 94 for and one against, the Senate on Thursday passed a bill (S 524) to authorize $570 million over five years in grants to help communities confront an epidemic in which dependence on opioid pain medicines often leads to heroin addiction and overdose deaths. The bill would fund state and local actions such as expanding treatment and recovery programs; adding drug task forces to police departments; conducting public-education and prevention programs; developing non-addictive pain-management treatments; combating drug trafficking across international borders and state lines; developing evidence-based treatments for substance abuse and taking steps to keep unused and expired drugs from reaching children and traffickers. A yes vote was to send the bill to the House, where it was expected to advance. Voting yes: Tammy Baldwin, D, Ron Johnson, R CURBS ON MEDICARE PAINKILLER ABUSE: Voting 86 for and three against, the Senate on Monday advanced several changes to S 524 (above), including restrictions on the 1 percent of Medicare participants who regularly obtain duplicative painkiller prescriptions to relieve addictions. The measure would fund programs to identify these suspected addicts and limit their access to one medical professional for writing the prescription and one pharmacy for filling it. A yes vote was to advance the Medicare provision and other changes to the bill. Voting yes: Baldwin, Johnson SALE OF FIGHTER JETS TO PAKISTAN: Voting 71 for and 24 against, the Senate on Thursday endorsed the administrations proposed $700 million sale of eight F-16 Block 52 fighter jets to Pakistan. The vote killed a measure (SJ Res 31) aimed at blocking the transaction, nearly half of which would be subsidized by U.S. tax dollars. The Pentagon said Pakistan would marshal the planes against militants using its tribal areas to stage attacks inside Afghanistan. But critics said Pakistan has a record of also supporting of the Afghan Taliban and cannot be trusted as a U.S. ally. A yes vote was to allow the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. Voting yes: Baldwin, Johnson Key Votes Ahead In the week of March 14, the Senate will vote on the nomination of John B. King, the former New York State education commissioner, as U.S. secretary of education. The House schedule was to be announced. Thomas Voting Reports Inc. A list containing the names of 151 martyrs has been handed over to the department of education, on the basis of which government schools in Rajasthan will be named. By India Today Web Desk: A list containing the names of 151 martyrs has been handed over to the department of education, on the basis of which government schools in Rajasthan will be named. The assurance came during the Question Hour on Friday at the assembly, soldier welfare minister Kalicharan Saraf was questioned by Congress MLA Ghanshyam. According to newspaper reports, the legislator said that it has been long since the state government announced that the local government schools would be named after the martyrs. advertisement He said that there are about 100 such pending cases across the state, but the education department is doing nothing in this regard. He also alleged that families of several martyrs were not being provided the benefits assured to them. "The family of martyr Om Prakash Meena is yet waiting for the plot of land and cooking gas-agency they were promised," Ghanshyam said. After the raised query, Saraf said that a list of 151 martyrs had been forwarded to the education department and there has been some delay in naming of the schools. But now the list is ready and he has also discussed it with school education minister Vasudev Devnani and are just waiting for the formalities to complete. He was also asked if the state government was considering opening a Sainik School in Karauli. He also found support from Congress whip Govind Singh Dotasar, who demanded to know when the state government would open a sainik school in Jhunjhunu as this had been promised during the Suraaj Sankalp Yatra. Read: School textbooks to retain names of Copernicus, Pythagoras, other foreign intellectuals: HRD Ministry Read: Female sarpanch picks up lathi, leads women to curb cheating in schools For information on more latest news and updates, click here --- ENDS --- Congress leader Ghulam Nabi said that it was Congress President Sonia Gandhi who was trying to fight the anti-secular forces both inside and outside the Parliament. By India Today Web Desk: Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad today accused the Narendra Modi government of trying to divide the country on secular lines. Addressing a massive gathering of religious minorities and opposition parties led by the Jamiat-Ulema-E-Hind, in New Delhi, veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi said that it was Congress President Sonia Gandhi who was trying to fight the anti-secular forces both inside and outside the Parliament. advertisement "Sonia Gandhi is trying her best to fight for secularism inside and outside the Parliament," he said. The Jawaharlal University (JNU) controversy also echoed at the event. JNU student leader Umar Khalid's father slammed the government for targeting college students unnecessarily. "It's shameful that we seek 'Azadi' even 68 years after independence," Khalid's father said. Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya were arrested along with JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of raising anti-national slogans in the college campus during an event organised in support of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru on February 9. While Kanhaiya was released from Tihar jail early this month, Umar and Anirban, continue to be under custody in the sedition case filed against the three. The gathering also witnessed the participation of several Left leaders, including CPI's Mohammed Salim. Also read: PM Modi compares Congress to death, claims party is above criticism JNU row: Fresh poster issues death threat to 'traitors' Kanhaiya, Umar Khalid JNU panel revokes suspension of 8 students, including Kanhaiya Kumar --- ENDS --- Campaigning for the Bihar Assembly election in November last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his arch rival Nitish Kumar were often seen targeting each other, some times hitting below the belt. The BJP suffered a heavy defeat in Bihar despite Modi's push. By India Today Web Desk: Campaigning for the Bihar Assembly election in November last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his arch rival Nitish Kumar were often seen targeting each other, some times hitting below the belt. The BJP suffered a heavy defeat in Bihar despite Modi's push. PM Modi was in Bihar today, his first visit to the state after the Assembly election loss. Modi attended a function at the Patna High Court and then inaugurated a rail-cum-road bridge in Hajipur. The bitter rivals, Modi and Nitish, shared the stage and some laughs during the two events, providing ample fodder for the lensmen. advertisement The prime minister and the Bihar chief minister flew to Hajipur from Patna in the same helicopter. In Hajipur, the leaders sat near to each other and were seen sharing a laugh. Chants of 'Modi, Modi' erupted when Nitish Kumar was speaking. He had to pause. PM Modi stood up from his seat, walked towards the front of the stage and waved the people to stop shouting and listen to what their CM was saying. Hajipur: PM Modi gets up, asks crowd to quiet down as they raise "Modi" chants while Nitish Kumar gave his speech.https://t.co/ZbQqukXP6k ANI (@ANI_news) March 12, 2016 Addressing the people after inaugurating the rail portion of Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge, Modi recalled that the project was initiated when Nitish Kumar was the rail minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet and expressed the hope that Centre and state government work in tandem for the development of the state. "This project was initiated when Nitishji was rail minister and Atalji was PM and now it is being completed. I am hopeful that the Centre and the state government will work together, shoulder to shoulder, to bring in development in Bihar," Modi said. Modi stopped short of blaming Nitish Kumar's previous stint for the delay in project and said the bridge should have been inaugurated 5-7 years ago had the project not been neglected. "If we want to change India, we will have to first change Bihar. Bihar is a priority for us because we feel Bihar's progress is key to India's progress. For India's sustainable development, it is important for India's eastern parts to develop," the prime minister added. Earlier, speaking at the concluding ceremony of the centenary year celebrations of the Patna High Court, PM Modi advocated the use of technology in courts. "Quality of argument and judgment will improve with technology being used actively (in the courts). We have something that we didn't have earlier - the power of technology. Let's make the bar, bench and court tech savvy," Modi said. --- ENDS --- Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde of the Supreme Court has suggested setting up of a common court for SAARC member countries to deal with cross-border terror attacks like 26/11 and crimes like smuggling of fake currency notes, drugs and weapons. By Gaurav C Sawant: To bring to justice perpetrators of trans-border terror attacks and crimes, a sitting judge of the Supreme Court has proposed the setting up of a common court for South Asia. Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde has suggested setting up of a common court for SAARC member countries to deal with cross-border terror attacks like 26/11 and crimes like smuggling of fake currency notes, drugs and weapons. advertisement "Could we consider having a common court for these countries that comprises of judges from all these countries that share the matter," Bobde said addressing the United Nations Counter Terrorism Committee in New York. In his emphatic address on need for common courts for cross-border terror cases, Bobde referred to the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attack case. 166 people lost their lives when 10 Pakistani terrorists attacked Mumbai. He spoke of how terrorists, trained, armed and launched from Pakistan, had attacked Mumbai and were guided by their handlers in Pakistan throughout the three-daylong terror strike. "This was their advantage (plot hatched in Pakistan and handlers across the border) and the disadvantage India had was that they did not know what the plan was and where the attackers would go next," Bobde added. "A court consisting of judges of all SAARC countries in the region will perhaps ensure swifter justice as it will ensure collaboration on trans-border cases," sources said. "Justice Bobde also suggested a secure website that can provide judges of the member countries access to information available to other judges (in the SAARC region) on modus operandi of terror group, arms and equipment used by terrorists and their handlers," sources added. Justice Bobde also suggested Apex Court judges visiting each other's law academies to understand law and its application in member countries. Bobde's idea was welcomed and supported by Nepal. The discussion in New York had very interesting and unique aspects raised by judges from Afghanistan and Pakistan. "For example given the security situation in Afghanistan the Chief Justice there said he had even been unable to take a walk in the open in the past decade. Pakistan posed another peculiar point - the judge raised the issue of security of law officers and judicial system. He said when there is no security for prosecutors how there be witness protection," sources privy to the discussion told Mail Today. "If we could have judges from these counties on a common court it would help a great deal. The modalities could be worked out," Bobde said addressing the gathering of judges. Bobde was speaking on the aspect of regional effort to support the judiciaries of South Asia in the effective adjudication of terrorism cases. advertisement "The aim is to understand the issues that arise in speedy dispensation of justice in cases related to terror and trans-border crimes," sources added. The counter-terrorism committee of the UN was established by the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001) post the 9/11 terror attacks in US. "This idea will be difficult to implement," feels Ujjwal Nikam, senior public prosecutor who handled the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks trial. "We do not have an extradition treaty with Pakistan and even if for example the SAARC court passes an order against Pakistan-based terrorists how will the court ensure that order is executed and action taken against the convicts remains the issue," he said. "It is a very good suggestion. There is merit in it and needs to be worked out. Speedy resolution of terror cases is necessary and I am sure judges in SAARC countries will cooperate for its implementation," said former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee. ALSO READ: 26/11 attack trial: Pakistan asks India to send witnesses to record statement advertisement Delhi Police's prized catch Abdul Karim Tunda let off in all 4 court cases --- ENDS --- Sheikh Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, has claimed that countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan were providing strategic and logistic support to the ISIS. In an exclusive interview with India Today's Sanjay Bragta, Hassoun hailed India as Syria's 'all weather friend' while claiming that ISIS fighters were being trained in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan-Pakistan. Excerpts from the interview: advertisement Sanjay Bragta: Syria has freedom of religion. Article 3 and 33 talks about freedom of opting any religion. Then there is a common narrative that the civil war in Syria is an inter-religious conflict, how did this happen in Syria ? Dr Ahmed: Syria is so much like the Indian republic. Syria is the only country in the Arab region which has 25 different sects and all the country around it, the maximum we have 4 to 5 sects in one country. Syria is the first secular country in the middle east. Syria in 2010, was a totally debt free country, they didn't owe any single dollar to any of international monetary systems. Why does it matter if the forces are American or Russian, or whether they are Shia or Sunni, because Syria is a country of its citizens, and it is not based on the religion or creed and I said this in front of the Arabian Parliament in 2007-08. In Syria, we don't care how many mosques we have, how many churches we have, temple or worship places we have. What we care about is the safety and well being of the human being itself. We never approve any political party on religious lines. So, if you ask me is there any minority in Syria, my answer would be there is no minority in Syria. There are Syrian citizens only. This must be painful, so the problem is not a regime fighting its own people as they have projected it to be. What is the regime? Even if it is a war between the regime and the people, what do they (countries like Turkey) have to do? Scientists, religious scholars, all of them were attacked in Syria and one of them was my own son. I met a person, who attacked my son, and asked him did he do that? He said that there were orders, direct orders, from Saudi Arabia, from Turkey to attack either Hazarat Mufti or anyone of his family or his son. "We were paid a thousand US dollars each," the man told me. After all this, I forgave him for killing my son. It is not a regime problem and not a sectarian problem and not religious problem, it is about the power struggle in the Middle East. Syria has always refused to be with one of the sides engaged with the other. The Prime Minister of Turkey has visited Syria five times, just to convince the Syrian leadership to allow parties to be based on religious thinking to exist in country, but our leadership has always refused this. The prince of Qatar came, and he told us - you have to find the way, you have to go to the American interests - we have always refused that. We have always maintained that we are on the Jawaharlal Lal Nehru's 'Non-Aligned' path to peace. India, with its wisdom, has put off the fire whenever there has been attempt to spark a struggle in the region. Similarly, we put off the fire of the Lebanon war. We have advised Iraq not to assault Kuwait, we spared no effort in trying to ensure that the Iraq-Kuwait war doesn't escalate. Sanjay Bragta: You admit that the ISIL, or the Daesh as you call it, is using money power to lure youths. How do you and your government in Syria plan to fight these people luring young people towards Jihad? Dr Ahmed: First of all , Syria is not fighting the ISIL. We are fighting against 100 different countries and I would like you to know where is the Daesh, it is in Torabora, Pakistan, Afghanistan, they have trained them and they were supporting them and gave them all facilities. And they have set them free. Now, they have set free them in Syria. They are as good as Blackwater. But there is an essential difference between them and the Blackwater. The Blackwater fights for the money. These people are putting them under the cover of religion. They are manufactured by the US in Afghanistan and the Taliban is a part of them, and there is Saudi school of thinking which is spreading throughout the world in the name of Islam which is the main power that directs them were to go and how to move. That's why we have invited all the media channels, media people to Syria. They should come and interview some of them in captivity in capital of Syria and ask them how are you trained. 9/11 perpetrators were trained in the US itself. On Paris terror attack Soon after the Paris was attacked, international agencies started saying that Syrian refugees were behind the attack. Later, investigations revealed that the attackers were from Belgium and France. They were born there but they studied in Saudi Arabia. That's why I asked the Indian brothers to pay attention to this. Gandhi made India the land of peace. I am not the Mufti for the Sunni in Syria. I am mufti of Syrian Arab republic, his people, his Mufti there are Zoroastrian, Christian, Jews, and Muslims and those people who believe in no god... that are brothers and you can't compel anyone to follow a religious thought. I felt good when some years back President of India was a Muslim and the Prime Minister was a Hindu. advertisement They never said he is from minority or a majority. He is a Indian citizen. That's why I came to India to tell the Indians that you are a wonderful people. Indians in Europe, in the US are proving themselves to be a very intellectual and intelligent people. Don't let the West misuse India to make it a poorer country. Take care of your own country. Sanjay Bragta: What do you think about the peace talk that is going on and do you think this as European ploy to oust President Bashar's government? Dr Ahmad: We are a country with a free will. There is no one to decide for us. We are an independent country, sovereign country. We decide for ourselves. After a five-year war, the UN, three months back agreed that the final world with this problem is the Syrian people's vote, but the ambition of Syrian people should be executed. Don't you see what they have done in Somalia, in Libya, in Iraq, in Yemen. They want to do the same with Syria. They want to decide for the people as if the people have no decision. There was an election for the Presidency four and a half years back, did you see what happened in that election? Sanjay Bragta: Does that mean that President Bashar Assad is ready to quit his post before the elections as is demanded by many countries in Europe. Doesn't that mean that Syria is bowing down to the pressures of the Europe? Dr Ahmad: First of all nobody told Europe that we agree to your demand. France is still thinking that they are controlling Syria. If we had agreed to that we won't be having the same position as it is happening now. After few weeks there will be Parliamentary election and there were previous elections also. Our people, our assembly, our cabinet... those are the people who decide when elections will happen and how it is to happen. No one will decide for the Syrian people. And I wish that you go to Geneva to attend the peace process which will take place after 3-4 days. You will see two things - the Syrian government side, which represent the Syrian people. You will not find backroom for that. But the other side will come from 4 different countries- from America, France, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. And you will see behind them 4 back rooms. Whenever the decision is to be made they go to the back room. Sanjay Bragta: Thank you Dr Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun for the time you gave you to India Today. Thank you very much. Dr Ahmad: Thank you very much. Thanks to the Indian people and thanks to the Indian government which has also received our deputy PM and foreign Minister Walid Muallem and which has not let this problem affect our bilateral relation because India has an independent decision making capability. They are not guided by anyone. advertisement Here is the full video advertisement --- ENDS --- A poster issuing threats to Jawaharlal University Student Union president, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya reportedly appeared at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Kanhaiya, Umar and Anirban, who have been charged with sedition, have been facing life threats for a while now. By India Today Web Desk: A poster issuing life threats to Jawaharlal University Student Union president, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya has reportedly appeared at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. An image of the poster claiming "shooting traitors is a national duty and I shall shoot Kanhaiya, Umar and Anirban," has been making rounds on social media. The poster has the name of Balbir Singh Bharatiya along with his phone number and a passport size photograph. Describing himself as a social worker, Singh has claimed that he was associated with Anna Hazare-led movement against corruption. advertisement Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said, "We have initiated an enquiry into the matter." According to the police, through the phone number given in the poster they have been able to track down a suspect. The suspect runs a shop at Yamuna Bazar area and had visited Jantar Mantar the day poster reportedly appeared. Kanhaiya, Umar and Anirban, who have been charged with sedition, have been facing life threats for a while now. On March 7, Delhi Police arrested Adarsh Sharma, president of Purvanchal Sena, who claimed to had announced through posters a reward of Rs 11 lakh for anyone who "shoots" JNU Students' Union president Kumar. ALSO READ: JNU panel revokes suspension of 8 students, including Kanhaiya Kumar --- ENDS --- Adding more texture to the bad times hovering over liquor baron Vijay Mallya, employees of now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines made humanitarian appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to secure their rightful and legitimate dues at the earliest stating that "justice delayed would be justice denied". By India Today Web Desk: Adding more texture to the bad times hovering over liquor baron Vijay Mallya, employees of now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines made humanitarian appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to secure their rightful and legitimate dues at the earliest stating that "justice delayed would be justice denied". In the letter addressed to Modi, employees mentioned that Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) had failed to pay their salaries and other dues like the provident fund and gratuity. The humanitarian plight also highlighted that the employees were facing trouble from the Income Tax department despite the fact that the default was from the Mallya's side. advertisement "Our present laws which were supposed to protect the employee's interest have become redundant and are failing to solve the purpose that they were meant to serve. The best example would be that some of our colleagues who could afford legal fees went to courts and were awarded decrees in their favour even after which it did not translate into actual dues, thereby making a mockery of our justice system. The others are still fighting for their dues in the winding-up petitions in the honourable Karnataka High Court," the letter said. The letter also asserted that majority of the affected 7,000 direct as well as indirect employees was incapable to file a court suit. Adding to their helplessness, their attempt to appeal on humanitarian grounds was even opposed by the councils of various parties, including the banks. The employees went on to say that they have lost all hopes as the legal system has failed them miserably and as a result "the common, law abiding citizens are suffering and bearing the brunt of it". "On behalf of all the employees of erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines, we request you for your immediate intervention in the matter helping us recover our hard earned dues," the letter said. Citing the past instances of sugarcane mills or cotton industries where government has paid the employees, the letter appealed the government to help them as well. The letter requested the government to pay the dues of the employees 'ex gratia' and recover from the company and the management of KFA along with the dues of the banks. "Sir, the government has enough avenues to recover the dues and can afford the unfortunate delay that it would take now. But the employees cannot bear any further delays. The whole world seems to have forgotten about us and misplaced its priorities in the larger scheme of thoughts when it comes to banks and others," the letter said. --- ENDS --- Arbaaz Khan and Malaika Arora's already-tumultuous relationship has taken an ugly turn now. Reportedly, Malaika is finally filing for a divorce and is ending her 18-year-old marriage with Arbaaz. By India Today Web Desk: Malaika Arora and Arbaaz Khan's divorce rumours started doing the rounds after a website claimed that they are heading for a split. And since then gossips mills have been churning out stories related to Arbaaz and Malaika's divorce. ALSO READ: Arbaaz Khan-Malaika Arora walking towards a divorce? Here's the truth ALSO READ: Arbaaz on divorce rumours with Malaika, we owe no one any explanations, so back off advertisement Arbaaz and Malaika's already-tumultuous relationship has taken an ugly turn now. According to Mumbai Mirror, Malaika is finally filing for a divorce and is ending her 18-year-old marriage with Arbaaz. Reportedly, Malaika's brother-in-law Salman Khan also tried to solve the issues between Arbaaz and Malaika. But it seems like Malaika has made up her mind and a close friend of Malaika has also confirmed that she will file for divorce. It's said that Malaika has also informed Salman and the whole family that she has been taking care of their son Arhaan. She has also been paying his school tuition fees. The couple's divorce rumours got more fire when Malaika and Arbaaz stopped featuring together in the reality show Power Couple. They only shot for three episodes together. Earlier, Arbaaz had also confessed that, "I love Malaika but I'm possessive about her. It wasn't like this when she was younger or I was new into the relationship. She is precious to me. I'm afraid of losing her now." There were reports that Arbaaz has been trying to patch up with Malaika and the two were even spotted at Power Couple's finale. But the two didn't pose for the cameras together. Earlier, Arbaaz gave a befitting reply to those who were taking about their divorce in a series of tweets. Arbaaz and Malaika married each other on December 12,1998 after five years of being in a relationship. No controversy had ever troubled their relationship and now they are heading for a divorce and ending their 18-year-old marriage. --- ENDS --- By Mail Today: The acclaimed India Today Conclave 2016, a two-day affair, would commence on March 17 with a star-studded line up of speakers from all walks of life. A high-powered event, the conclave would be bringing together newsmakers from the highest corridors of power as well as those curated from the best platforms across the globe. The conclave would be attended by global experts, including thought leaders who would analyse our age; politicians who determine our headlines; policy makers who shape our future; and entertainers who define our daily lives. A free spree of honest and bold exchange is what the conclave stands to offer. advertisement Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would be speaking on whether the economy could achieve a growth rate running into double digits. The lawyer-politician, who also holds the portfolios of Corporate Affairs and is the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, rose from the ranks from being the leader of right wing students' body. Having been in the thick of things for the BJP in several capacities, he is regarded as the most indispensable and prominent minister in the current regime. Amit Shah The second most powerful face in the BJP after the PM himself, BJP national president Amit Shah too would be attending the conclave. Shah would be speaking on the issue of the politics of patriotism, which gripped the country in the wake of anti-India slogans that were raised on JNU campus. Another minister, who has earned the respect of his colleagues and people alike for being the no-nonsense go-getter, Nitin Gadkari too would be brainstorming at the conclave. Another luminary of the Modi government who would be sharing his thoughts at the conclave is Piyush Goyal, the Union Minister for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy. He would be speaking on the possibility of India having 24-hour uninterrupted power supply. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu would again be making headlines after his recent efforts to restructure the railways enshrined in the 2016 Budget. Prabhu, who donned many a mantle during the last NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, is well known for his power sector reforms. Heading two ministries in the present government, Nirmala Sitharaman, would be the centre of attraction also because her alma mater JNU has been in news. Sitharaman, who is Minister of State (Independent Charge) for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs under the Ministry of Finance, would be addressing the conclave on hot ideas and cool start-ups. ALSO READ: India Today Education Conclave 2016: Private sector impactful, still the onus lies with the public sector --- ENDS --- Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Bihar today to participate in the closing ceremony of the Patna High Court's centenary celebrations. He will also be inaugurating the rail portion of Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge in Hajipur. By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Bihar today to participate in the closing ceremony of the Patna High Court's centenary celebrations. He will also be inaugurating the rail portion of Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge in Hajipur. Hours before Modi's arrival at the Patna High Court, organisers have reported that at least 18 passes for the event have gone missing. The report has sent the security establishment into a tizzy. While the police have launched a desperate hunt to locate the missing passes, no FIR has been filed in the matter yet. advertisement Lalu Prasad not invited Bihar's ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal has taken exception over party chief and former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad not been invited for PM's Hajipur function. "It was Lalu Prasad who added road to the railway bridge when he was the railway minister. But he has neither been invited at the railway function, nor his name mentioned in the advertisements," Bihar deputy Chief Minister and Lalu's son Tejaswi Yadav said. Tejaswi said that the programme is being held in Raghopur, a constituency he represents, but he has also been not invited. Tejaswi, who holds road and building construction departments in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, said Prime Minister Modi should apologise to the people of Bihar for not keeping his word of giving a special package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore. Shatrughan Sinha to skip Modi events Shatrughan Sinha, who is at odds with the BJP leadership, will also not be attending any of the two events of PM Modi. The Patna Sahib MP is in Gurgaon due to a tragedy in his family. Sinha's former sister-in-law was found hanging in her flat in Gurgaon on Thursday. --- ENDS --- The apex court on Friday refused to go into the issue of Pakistan-American terrorist David Headley's declaration of Ishrat Jahan as a Lashkar operative or former Home Minister P Chidambaram changing an affidavit to give her a clean chit saying the Gujarat High Court was better equipped to do so. By Harish V Nair: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to go into the issue of Pakistan-American terrorist David Headley's declaration of Ishrat Jahan as a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative or former Home Minister P Chidambaram changing an affidavit to give her a clean chit saying the Gujarat High Court was better equipped to do so. The court dismissed a petition which sought quashing of criminal cases against Gujarat policemen including former DIG DG Vanzara in the alleged encounter killing of Ishrat who according to the plea was a "terrorist as proved by David Headley" who plotted to kill Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat chief minister. advertisement A bench of justices PC Ghosh and Amitava Roy said "so many issues were involved. We have to look into so many things" and so the appropriate High Court was best equipped to hear it. "The person who has a locus can move the High Court under article 226 of the constitution," said the bench. "You withdraw it or we will dismiss it. It will be better if you withdraw as then all issues will remain open," the bench told Sharma who refused to withdraw it. Sharma filed the petition following a recent testimony by US national and Lashkar-e-Toiba operative David Coleman Headley, who deposed that Ishrat was a member of the Pakistan-based terror group. Taking into account the statement of ex-Home Secretary GK Pillai, the petition had also urged the court to look into former Home Minister P Chidambaram "changing an affidavit" filed in the Supreme Court, which originally described Ishrat and her slain aides as LeT operatives. Headley's statement has revived the political sparring over whether Ishrat was an innocent student killed in cold blood or a terrorist shot down before she could execute a plan to assassinate Modi. Pillai was quoted by media reports saying that, Chidambaram, who was the home minister then, had seen to it that any references to Ishrat's LeT links was dropped. Pillai also said that Chidambaram had recalled the file from the joint secretary a month after the original affidavit was filed in the apex court. Stating that the "killing of a terrorist is not an offence under the Indian law", the petition asks the Supreme Court to drop charges against policemen accused of staging a fake encounter outside Ahmedabad in 2004. Four people, including Ishrat, were killed in the encounter. ALSO READ: Arun Jaitley's Ishrat Jahan salvo: Congress tried to fix a BJP leader Sushilkumar Shinde rubbishes allegations of manipulating Ishrat Jahan case file --- ENDS --- By Mail Today: A day after Karnataka's Home Minister G Parameshwara returned from New Delhi after meeting Congress President Sonia Gandhi, he announced the formation of a special team within the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to probe the killing of renowned writer and rationalist Dr MM Kalburgi. Dr Kalburgi was shot dead by unknown miscreants on August 30, 2015, at his residence in Dharwad in northwestern Karnataka. So far, the probe conducted by the CID has not led to any conclusive evidence. The suspects are yet to be identified. However, the CID is of the view that suspects, who killed other rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, were responsible for Dr Kalburgi's death. They also claimed that the same weapon was used to kill all the three rationalists. However, the Karnataka CID, the Maharashtra police and the CBI are hold different views on these issues. advertisement In an effort to speed up the probe, particularly following a diktat from the Congress High Command, the government has announced the special team. "The Special Team will once again look into the circumstances leading to the death of Dr Kalburgi. The FSL has found evidence that bullets fired at all the three rationalists had left similar marks. Our police is following the leads and we are confident of nabbing the killers," Parameshwara said. The delay in nabbing the killers has been one of the failures of the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka. For a considerable half of 2015, he was under pressure to handover the case to the CBI. The Karnataka government, for a while, considered handing over the case to the CBI, but did not go ahead. "The party is not happy with the way sensitive issues are being handled by the government in Karnataka. We are hearing complaints of poor governance and administration. Parameshwara in particular was asked to show results in this case. Hence, the special team has been constituted," said sources in the Congress. Parameshwara happens to be the President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee and recently he took over as the Home Minister. He is keen on proving himself by getting the police to crack the case, which has become a major challenge for the investigation agencies. Last month, the CBI, which is probing the killings of Dabholkar and Pansare, informed the Bombay High Court that it would seek the assistance of a third party, probably an agency like Scotland Yard, for an independent opinion on the ballistics report in view of the diverse opinions from the investigating agencies. In its report to the government, the Karnataka CID had said that all the three rationalists might have been killed by the same group. Ballistic experts in Bengaluru confirmed that the bullet was fired from a 7.65-mm country-made gun, for which there is a lack of consensus among the three investigating agencies. ALSO READ: Same weapon is used to kill MM Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare: CID Kalburgi killing: CID grills professor --- ENDS --- Weather couldn't dim the spirits of over 1 lakh Art of Living (AOL) volunteers and followers, who descended on Delhi from even Russia, China and USA, to celebrate 35 years of the NGO's "humanitarian service". Participants (right) perform at the World Culture Festival on the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi. By Mail Today: The skies opened up to lend drama to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on Friday. Already marred by controversies, thunderstorm followed by heavy rain and hail washed down the elaborate arrangements for audience seating at the event. The site on Yamuna bank, spread over 150 acres from Sarai Kale Khan to DND toll road, was left in a pool of ankle-deep mud. advertisement Over 1 lakh devotees of the spiritual guru, who descended on Delhi from even Russia, China and USA, were left struggling to avoid tripping down. Lack of shuttle service and the uphill walk to the exit gates of the venue weren't the only problems for those leaving the event, traffic-choked roads made it worse. However, weather couldn't dim the spirits of over 1 lakh Art of Living (AOL) volunteers and followers, who gathered to celebrate 35 years of the NGO's "humanitarian service". The massive stage - 1,200 feet long, 200 feet wide and 40 feet high - adorned with golden domes shimmered in light. A huge posse of Delhi Police and Army personnel checked security details as the invitee list included 55 state heads, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UAE Ministerof Culture Sheikh Nahayan bin Mabarak Al Nahayan, and Alojz Peterle, Member European Parliament, among others. Children, decked up in glittering costumes, waited patiently to perform Kathak and Bharatnatyam while their excited parents cheered them on. Fans from as far as Dubai and Phillipines chanted, 'Jai Gurudev.' It was nothing short of a repeat of Commonwealth Games (CWG) as lakhs of AOL followers from all over India, and the world, were accommodated in homes of Delhi-based volunteers over the past 2 months. Sabina Chhatri, who came from Darjeeling (West Bengal), said, "I flew down to Delhi, with three others, on Monday. We are residing in Dwarka at an AOL member's house. Our breakfast, lunch and dinner, all are taken care of." She said she'll surely be back on Saturday to see Maruni, a beautiful dance from Nepal. She said, "It's like a dream come true. This moment will not come again." Nikhil Dalal, a manager with Siemens in Pune, took a week's leave from work. He said, "When my company's Vice-president heard I am going for Art of Living's World Culture Festival, he granted me chhutti immediately. I take Yoga and Pranayam sessions at my company too, which I learnt during Art of Living's basic course programme." Fatima, Ghazala and Reshma, from 'Hum Hindustani' NGO in Delhi, said they were invited by Art of Living. "We are enjoying all the dances. We didn't know our country has such diverse culture. It is very colourful and happy," Fatima said. Dr Swathi R from Uduppi, Karnataka, said she's here to experience the "divine opportunity to meditate with Sri Sri Ravishankar." "It cannot be explained in words," she claimed, "To be able to join gurudev in meditation, is indescribable." advertisement Then there were those who had come to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Santosh Sangwan from Ambala, Haryana, said, "I am cold and shivering from the rain, but I had to see Modi. I love to hear him speak." Anastasia, from Berlin, arrived all decked up in traditional Russian costume with flowers in her hair. She waved both the Tricolour and Russian flag in her hands. In broken English she muttered, "Namaste! I love India and yoga." "I hope this country remembers its ancient civilisation and all its lessons to the world. There is Algebra, Physics, Astronomy - a treasure trove of knowledge you can teach us. The world is richer with yogi-land India," she added. ALSO READ: World Culture Festival: Art of Living yet to deposit fine imposed by NGT advertisement World Culture Festival: Cops in top gear to control traffic mess --- ENDS --- Commuters faced trouble in availing public transport and trains from Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station as traffic near Sarai Kale Khan was heavy. However, the situation near the venue of the event is likely to remain unchanged till Sunday. Traffic moved at a snail's pace at nearly all major intersections and arterial roads in Delhi despite several arrangements and traffic advisories. By Mail Today: Major arterial roads in the Capital were choked on Friday as a large number of people congregated at the World Culture Festival. To add to the woes of commuters, the skies opened up in the evening. As predicted, all routes connecting the venue in east Delhi saw vehicles stranded. Commuters faced trouble in availing public transport and trains from Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station as traffic near Sarai Kale Khan was heavy. advertisement The situation near the venue is likely to remain the same till Sunday. The showers and likely showers on Saturday and Sunday are likely to disrupt the event on Saturday and Sunday. Delhi Police, in their Twitter post, had suggested alternative routes, but the situation was far from good. Police had deployed around 4,000 personnel for traffic management in view of over 20,000 marriages scheduled to take place on Friday and the AOL event. The Ring Road stretch in south Delhi, Noida Link Road, NH-24, areas near Akshardham, Mayur Vihar, Ashram Chowk saw crawling traffic. Initially, around 1,700 officials were deployed for traffic management for the World Cultural Festival and around 300 were on standby for the other events to be held during the same time. Travel time for commuters from Noida to Connaught Place, which usually takes 35-40 minutes, was one-and-a-half hours. For the festival, organisers made provisions for parking on the Yamuna banks. The space is limited and so parking was given on a first-come-first-serve basis, which also caused confusion among the drivers. Over 12,000 personnel were deployed for the three-day World Culture Festival which was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The security personnel have been sourced from all 11 police districts, the Security Unit and specialised units like Police Control Room, Special Cell, Special Branch, Traffic department, Crime Branch and even the Economic Offences Wing. The brass of Delhi Police was present at the venue. A master control room has been set up for the event, which takes reports from five control rooms set up at the venue, with each coming under the supervision of a Joint Commissionerrank officer. At least 500 police personnel will also be deployed at the hotel where the dignitaries are to be put up and around 4,000 personnel from Delhi Traffic Police are part of a masterplan chalked out by the chief of the department. ALSO READ: World Culture Festival: Art of Living yet to deposit fine imposed by NGTSri Sri's World Culture Fest: Organisers to follow these conditions set by green team advertisement --- ENDS --- The UN Security Council today approved its first-ever resolution of tackling the escalating problem of sexual abuse by UN peacekeeper, especially those based in Central African Republic and Congo. By AP: The UN Security Council today approved its first-ever resolution of tackling the escalating problem of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers who act as predators when sent to protect vulnerable civilians in some of the world's most volatile areas. The United Nations has been in the spotlight for months over allegations of child rape and other sexual abuses by its peacekeepers, especially those based in Central African Republic and Congo. advertisement The UN says there were 69 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers in 2015, with an additional 25 allegations so far this year. The resolution was approved by a vote of 14-0 with Egypt abstaining after a last-minute amendment it proposed that would have weakened the text was defeated. The US-drafted resolution endorses Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's plan for reform, including his decision to repatriate military or police units "where there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse." It also asks Ban to replace contingents where allegations are not properly investigated, perpetrators are not held accountable or the secretary-general is not informed on the progress of investigations. The Egyptian amendment would have required that all three conditions are met before a military or police unit is sent home, not just one of them as now required. It's up to the home country of the soldier or police officer to conduct the investigation and determine the punishment if allegations of sexual abuse or exploitation are proven. The United States, the biggest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, said it wanted the UN's most powerful body to send a strong signal that it will not tolerate the escalating problem. "To the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, we pledge that we will do better," US Ambassador Samantha Power said after the vote. "We will do better to ensure that the blue helmets that we send as your protectors will not become perpetrators." Secretary-General Ban called the resolution "a significant step in our collective efforts to combat the terrible damage caused to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse" and pledged to ensure protection and support for those who have been abused, his spokesman said. More than 100,000 troops and police are deployed in the UN's far-flung peacekeeping operations, the vast majority from developing countries. The United Nations reimburses troop contributing countries for salaries and provides allowances for peacekeepers. ALSO READ: South Sudan allows soldiers to rape women as part of their salary --- ENDS --- US and South Korean troops staged a big amphibious landing exercise, storming simulated North Korean beach defences amid heightened tension and threats by the North to annihilate its enemies. By Reuters: US and South Korean troops staged a big amphibious landing exercise on Saturday, storming simulated North Korean beach defences amid heightened tension and threats by the North to annihilate its enemies. The landing and assault drills on South Korea's east coast were part of eight weeks of joint exercises between the allies which the South has said are the largest ever. The North has denounced the exercises as "nuclear war moves" and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive. advertisement Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high since the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and followed that with a long-range rocket launch last month, triggering new UN sanctions. About 55 US marine aircraft and 30 US and South Korean ships, including the USS Bonhomme Richard and USS Boxer, which carry AV-8B Harrier attack jets and V-22 Osprey aircrafts, took part in the assault on beaches near Pohang city, the US navy said. "They will penetrate notional enemy beach defenses, establish a beach head, and rapidly transition forces and sustainment ashore," the US military based in South Korea said in a statement before the exercise. The North's military said it was prepared to counter the US and South Korean forces "with an ultra-precision blitzkrieg strike of the Korean style". "The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK holding tightly the arms to annihilate the enemies with towering hatred for them are waiting for the dignified Supreme Command to issue an order to launch a preemptive strike of justice," it said in comments carried by the state KCNA news agency. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. CNN reported on Saturday that North Korea has been searching for one of its submarines that has been missing for days off its east coast. The submarine may be adrift under the sea or have sunk, perhaps after a technical problem during an exercise, CNN quoted US officials with intelligence of secret US monitoring of the North's activities as saying. North Korea has said it is developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles although doubts about that were raised after Western experts said publicly released footage of tests appeared to be fake. On Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watched as his forces fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea. This month the North conducted drills with what it said were newly developed large caliber rocket launchers. Kim has ordered the country to improve its nuclear attack capability by conducting more tests, in defiance of a UN Security Council resolution adopted last week in response to the isolated state's latest nuclear test. advertisement Kim also said his country had miniaturised nuclear warheads to mount on ballistic missiles, although the US and South Korean governments have expressed doubts about that too. The South Korean and US militaries have said they had notified the North of "the non-provocative nature" of the exercises involving about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. ALSO READ North Korea has miniature nuclear warhead, says Kim Jong-Un Kim Jong-Un poses beside possible nuclear warhead mock up --- ENDS --- Guinness World Records has named 112-year-old Israel Kristal as the world's oldest man alive. He has lived through both World Wars and survived Nazi war camp Auschwitz in the 1940s. By India Today Web Desk: Israel Kristal is special. No, he hasn't won any Oscar Award, nor has he made any speech. But he is the world's oldest man alive, and he has seen more in his 112 years than you can imagine. Certified as the 'Oldest living man' by Guinness World Records, Kristal has lived through both World Wars and survived Nazi war camp Auschwitz in the 1940s. Israel Kristal with son Heim Kristal, daughter Shula Kuperstoch, two little great grandchildren and the Head of Guinness World Records Marco Frigatti. Source: Guinness World Records Official Website advertisement Born in Poland on September 15, 1903, Kristal was separated from his parents during the First World War at a tender age of 11. He eventually moved to Poland's Lodz, started running a confectionery business, got married and had two children. But then, the Nazi invasion happened, and a 35-year-old Kristal was forced to move into the Lodz ghetto with his family in 1939. Four years later, he was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. But he survived the brutal tortures, weighing only 37kgs when rescued by the Allies in May 1945. The Holocaust, however, costed Kristal his wife, Chaja Feige Frucht, and both his children. A sole survivor of his family, he then emigrated to Haifa in Israel in 1950. Kristal has been living there ever since, starting another family and running a successful confectionery business. Now retired, he continues to live in Haifa, surrounded by his big family of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Israel Kristal with his extended family. Source: Guinness World Records Official Website Kristal, all of 112 years and 179 days as of today, was awarded his 'oldest man living' certificate at his home by Guinness World Records's Head of Records Marco Frigatti. Wondering what's his secret to a long life? This is what he had to say to that: "I don't know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why," said Kristal. "All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost." Well, the oldest living person, 115-years-old Susannah Mushatt Jones, has some other secret to her long life. Bacon and "lots of sleep". And we'll leave you to ponder over that! --- ENDS --- The lawyer for Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko has said the issue of her release now lies in political and diplomatic territory. "The format - pardon, exchange - does not matter at all. The only question that matters now is to persuade the Russian leadership that it can't go on like that. If they realize this, they will find a suitable decision," Ilya Novikov said on the Chernoye Zerkalo (Black Mirror) program on the Inter television channel on Friday. "I would like to stress that the defense lawyers' work at the trial is effectively over. The sentencing does not require our participation. Since Nadiya has refused to file an appeal, our function as lawyers effectively boils down to maintaining contact with her," he said. Doctors are no longer given access to Savchenko, and neither the consul, nor her relatives will be allowed to visit her until the verdict is announced, the lawyer. "Effectively, the ball is now on the side of politicians and diplomats," the lawyer said. Course location The UK IPO has 22 April 2016. The proposals are i. Introducing a notification of intention to grant, thereby removing the need for applicants to foreshadow divisional applications. ii. Prohibiting the use of omnibus claims except where absolutely essential. iii. Clarifying the period for making a request for reinstatement of a patent application. iv. Allowing extensions to the period for filing an address for service. v. Relaxing the formal requirements for drawings to allow applicants to provide shaded drawings and photographs. vi. Removing the requirement for patent proprietors to notify the IPO each year of the address for receipt of the renewal reminder. vii. Clarifying the period for making amendments to international applications upon their entry to the UK national phase. viii. Clarifying the requirements concerning changes of names and addresses. ix. Correcting the drafting of the rule concerning advertising amendments made during infringement and revocation proceedings. x. Removing the requirement for triplicate copies of international applications to be filed when using the IPO as a receiving office for such applications. xi. Removing the requirement for duplicate copies of Patents Form 51 to be filed when notifying the IPO of the appointment or change of agent. News from IPO attaches The IPKat has also heard news of the IPO overseas attaches, based in China, Brazil, South East Asia, and India. According to a press release from the IPO: Overseas attaches from the UKs Intellectual Property Office (IPO) have helped to protect 440 million worth of British intellectual property across the globe. New figures released today point to the outstanding work of the IPOs attaches based in China, Brazil, South East Asia, and India who have now advised more than 14,000 UK businesses operating overseas. The attaches are also helping to promote respect for intellectual property in both emerging and established economies, encouraging cooperation and mutual respect for IP rights. In the past year alone, the attaches, who help businesses navigate and understand local IP regimes abroad, have advised on IP rights worth in excess of 47 million and have held one-on-one meetings with more than 200 businesses. Minister for IP, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, revealed these latest statistics to a British business audience at the CBI, a key partner of the IPO in promoting British business interests. The UK IPO has announced a consultation on proposed changes to the Patents Rules. The deadline for responding is. The proposals arei. Introducing a notification of intention to grant, thereby removing the need for applicants to foreshadow divisional applications.ii. Prohibiting the use of omnibus claims except where absolutely essential.iii. Clarifying the period for making a request for reinstatement of a patent application.iv. Allowing extensions to the period for filing an address for service.v. Relaxing the formal requirements for drawings to allow applicants to provide shaded drawings and photographs.vi. Removing the requirement for patent proprietors to notify the IPO each year of the address for receipt of the renewal reminder.vii. Clarifying the period for making amendments to international applications upon their entry to the UK national phase.viii. Clarifying the requirements concerning changes of names and addresses.ix. Correcting the drafting of the rule concerning advertising amendments made during infringement and revocation proceedings.x. Removing the requirement for triplicate copies of international applications to be filed when using the IPO as a receiving office for such applications.xi. Removing the requirement for duplicate copies of Patents Form 51 to be filed when notifying the IPO of the appointment or change of agent.The IPKat has also heard news of the IPO overseas attaches, based in China, Brazil, South East Asia, and India. According to a press release from the IPO: UNIONs dinners are becoming famous for their mix of good spirit and great speakers and they have surpassed themselves this time with their next dinner on 6th April 2016 featuring EPO President Benoit Battistelli himself. In his first public appearances in the UK for a long time, the President will be speaking on the topic The EPO: Current and future role and were looking forward to a fascinating evening, hosted by UNION President Gwilym Roberts who comments this is a fantastic opportunity to show Mr Battistelli some British hospitality and hear a little more about future plans for the EPO in an informal and mellow environment. Full details and tickets can be obtained from EventBrite at https://union-ip-battistelli.eventbrite.co.uk Following the success of the previous convention held in November 2013, the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) and AIPPI-Israel are pleased to once again to host The 2nd International Convention on The Economy of Innovation March 21-22, 2016, David Intercontinental Hotel, Tel-Aviv, IsraelMarch 20, 2016, Pre-conference "Start-Up Nation tour"The conference is being organized by the Israeli chapter of AIPPI, in collaboration with and as a joint effort of various organizations, all having significant footprints in the IP world: WIPO, the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University, the Israel Patent Office, the Israel Ministry of Justice, the Israel Ministry of Trade, the Israeli Patent Attorney Association, MIT forum of innovation and many more.The event addresses both practical and theoretical issues relating to Patents, Brands & Trademarks, Designs, Copyrights (and other rights...), in parallel break-out sessions to allow guests to pick-and-choose their topics of interest.The University of Amsterdams Institute for Information law announces the seventeenth IViR Summer Course on International Copyright law from July 4-8, 2016. The course will focus on recent developments and broader trends in copyright law. The face of copyright law changes continuously, mostly due to the constant evolution of the digital networked environment and the legislative initiatives at the international and European level. The lectures are given by internationally renowned scholars, including those of the Institute for Information law, and practitioners who all share years of academic and practical experience in the field of international copyright law.The course is aimed at private sector lawyers, government officials, NGO staff, academics, PhD students and others involved in questions of copyright law. The course will be held in a historic canal house and will employ a seminar format that allows a deeper examination of the subject than is possible at most professional conferences. Enrollment is limited to 25 participants. Additional information including a list of faculty members, the course programme and a link for online registration is available at http://www.ivir.nl/courses/icl . For questions, contact course organizer Stef van Gompel (informationlaw@uva.nl).: De Rode Hoed, Keizersgracht 102, Amsterdam The state-run news agency Javan Online reported that the last session of the fourth Assembly of Experts was held on March 8 and 9, and on March 10 members of the Assembly went to meet Supreme Leader Khamenei. Referring to the results of the Assembly of Experts elections held on February 26, Khamenei said that the elimination of Mohammad Yazdi and Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi is a loss for the Assembly of Experts. In the elections, Khamenei and his allies in Tehran province lost badly and the current speaker of the Assembly of Experts, Mohammad Yazdi, was eliminated and Ahmad Jannati, the first candidate in Khameneis list, was the last to win his seat in the regimes Assembly of Experts. According to Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the implications of taking one step back from the regimes nuclear projects were reflected in the election as it has now disturbed the regimes internal balance. The momentum gained by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and allies has weakened and undermined Khameneis hegemony. The entire regime was the loser of the elections; as internal crises aggravate and the populations rage escalates, the mullahs inch closer to their downfall, she added. In his meeting with Assembly of Expert members, Khamenei expressed his fear of the 2009 uprising and said the unruly behaviour of the people who did not get the votes in 2009 and created sedition in the country brought cost to the country and lured the enemy. He went on to call for stopping attacks on the Guardian Council and said vetting 12,000 people in twenty days is a legal shortcoming that must be resolved, and the Guardian Council should not be attacked because of this legal problem. The Guardian Council consists of 12 members, six members of which are directly appointed by Khamenei and six other members are lawyers who are elected by the introduction of the head of the judiciary and with the approval of the Parliament. Khamenei also names the head of the judiciary. Each candidate is vetted by this institution. In another part of his speech, Khamenei said that the enemy has planned about 10 ways to infiltrate scientifically, culturally, and economically including contacts with universities and scientists, participation in apparently scientific conferences, but with the aim of influence and sending security officers under the guise of cultural activities. The Supreme Leader said in a critical tone that westerners now travel to Iran but these travels have so far had no positive results and in practice we must see what effects these trips would have. MENA said the decision came during the league foreign ministers meeting Friday. The move aligns the 22-member league firmly behind Saudi Arabia and the Saudi-led bloc of six Gulf Arab nations, which made the same move against Hezbollah earlier this month, the Associated Press reported. However, the Saudi ambassador in Cairo, Ahmed Qattan, told the satellite TV station Al Arabiya that the vote was not unanimous as Lebanon and Iraq abstained. The Arab League move, as the GCC one earlier, ramps up the pressure on Hezbollah, which is fighting on the side of President Bashar Assad in Syria. It comes less than two weeks after Saudi Arabia cut $4 billion in aid to Lebanese security forces. With wire reports [March 11, 2016] Fitch Affirms Anaheim City School District, CA's GOs at 'AA-'; Outlook Stable Fitch Ratings has affirmed the 'AA-' rating on outstanding unlimited tax general obligations (ULTGO) bonds of the Anaheim City School District, CA (News - Alert) (the district) as follows: --$57.6 million outstanding series 2004 and 2007. The Rating Outlook is Stable. SECURITY The bonds are payable from an unlimited ad valorem tax on all taxable property within the district. KEY RATING DRIVERS ADEQUATE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: Planned general fund deficit spending due to the potential conversion of an elementary school to a charter school may decrease reserves to levels that Fitch still considers adequate. CHARTER CONVERSION, REVENUE LOSS: The district stands to lose a significant amount of revenues if a lawsuit seeking the charter school conversion is successful. The district plans to mitigate the lost revenues, through both revenue and expenditure measures. TOURISM-DEPENDENT ECONOMY: Tourism dominates the economy, with The Walt Disney (News - Alert) World Company (Disney; Fitch Issuer Default Rating [IDR] 'A'; Outlook Stable) comprising a high 25% of taxable assessed value (TAV). The city of Anaheim experienced remarkably stable AV performance during the downturn and has seen a 16.6% rise over the past five years. MANAGEABLE DEBT BURDEN: Fitch expects the district's overall debt burden to remain moderate. Pension costs will likely rise over the next several years in order to address substantial unfunded liabilities, subject to future state legislative action. RATING SENSITIVITIES POTENTIAL REVENUE LOSS MITIGATION: The district's financial performance would likely suffer, though remain adequate in the near term, if the conversion of a district elementary school to a charter school takes place. Thus, actions to mitigate the associated revenue losses are critical to maintaining the district's current credit rating. CREDIT PROFILE Anaheim City School District serves the city of Anaheim, located approximately 30 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles in northern Orange (News - Alert) County. As of 2016, the district serves a population of 201,750 and had average daily attendance of 18,110. ADEQUATE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE The district is currently facing a lawsuit from a parent group seeking to convert a district elementary school into a charter school under the state Parent Empowerment Act. If the district receives an unfavorable ruling, it stands to lose a significant $6 million of ongoing funding. However, management presented a Budget Stabilization Plan to the board on March 9 that was unanimously approved. The plan provided solutions that exceeded budget revenue shortfall by more than 50%. It contains offsetting revenues, including additional Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) monies contained in the Governor's budget (not yet adopted), reclassification of certain programmatic spending, and reduction in deferred maintenance contributions as allowed under state law. Prudent budgeting practices and proactive spending reductions have helped the district weather general fund revenue declines in the post-recession years. Management implemented approximately $16.5 million in cuts from fiscal years 2009 to 2013, reducing general fund spending by nearly 10% over this time. Cuts included increased class sizes, reducing staff through layoffs and attrition, salary freezes, furlough days, and the elimination of several programs. Fitch believes the district retains a slim degree of additional expenditure flexibility. The district's projected fiscal 2016 year-end unrestricted fund balance totals $26.5 million (equal to 13% of spending). Fiscal 2015 ended with an unrestricted general fund balance of $15 million, equal to 8% of spending. This is a slight increase from the 2014 balance of $13 million (7.7% of spending). In anticipation of additional LCFF gap funding in fiscal 2015, the district implemented the first wage increase raise in five fiscal years during fiscal 2014. A general fund balance draw in fiscal 2013 was related to a loss of federal stimulus money and the carry-over of expenditures for restricted programs from fiscal 2012. DEPENDENT REVENUE STRUCTURE; IMPROVEMENT EVIDENT State funding provides the majority of district revenues, and growth prospects have improved recently with the general recovery in state finances. The district benefits from the state's new funding formula as 89% of the student body is eligible for LCFF funding. Consequently, revenue growth appears likely to continue, even if the district loses the school conversion lawsuit. This trend is countered by the district's continued loss in average daily attendance (ADA), thus slowing revenue growth. The district's maintenance of general fund balances above its low target of 6% appears likely through fiscal 2018 even given the loss of the charter school. CONTINUED ADA DECLINE The district's ADA in fiscal 2016 of18,113 represented a decline of more than 15% since 2001, partly attributable to the district's minor population loss. ADA increased slightly in fiscals 2012 and 2013 before declining in fiscals 2015 and 2016, demonstrating volatility that the district did not anticipate when projecting flat enrollment. The district is now projecting further declines through fiscal 2018 and a recent report by its demographer shows declines for the next 10 years. AVERAGE ECONOMY PERFORMING WELL TAV declined only 1.2% during the downturn and has since increased nearly 17% though fiscal 2016. The district's economy is dependent upon tourism, largely driven by Disneyland, which accounts for 25% of fiscal 2015 AV. Disney completed over $1 billion in renovations to the California Adventure Park, including the opening of Cars Land in June 2012, and is expected to invest another $1 billion in its Star Wars land. The unemployment rate of 5.2% as of December 2015 remains higher than the county average, but compares favorably with the state and is nearly even with the nation. Per capita money income is very low but median household income is much higher, reflective of both local service sector employment and larger households within the city. MODERATE DEBT PROFILE The overall debt burden for the district is moderate on a per capita basis and relative to TAV. Amortization is moderate with approximately 53% of principal repaid in 10 years, excluding $20.4 million in accreted interested attributable to the district's series 2011 capital appreciation bonds and $30 million in bond anticipation notes (BANs) that mature in fiscal 2017. The district is currently assessing capital needs. It expects to issue approximately $85 million within the next year to refund the $30 million BANs, refund approximately $25 million in GO bonds for economic savings, and provide $30 million for school modernization. Further, the district expects to issue $30 million for school projects in fiscal 2019. The district participates in two state-sponsored employee pension plans and is likely to face ongoing increases in contribution rates to address substantial unfunded liabilities. Funding for the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) is a particular concern, as statutory contribution rates remain well below the level required to amortize existing obligations. The district's other post-employment benefits (OPEB) had a very low unfunded OPEB liability of approximately $37 million (0.2% of fiscal 2014 TAV as of the most recent valuation on July 1, 2013. Carrying costs for debt service and retirement benefits are manageable (11% of governmental expenditures in fiscal 2015) but will rise over the next several years given increased pension contribution rates. Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'. Fitch recently published exposure drafts of state and local government tax-supported criteria (Exposure Draft: U.S. Tax-Supported Rating Criteria, dated Sept. 10, 2015 and Exposure Draft: Incorporating Enhanced Recovery Prospects into U.S. Local Tax-Supported Ratings, dated Feb. 2, 2016). The drafts include a number of proposed revisions to existing criteria. If applied in the proposed form, Fitch estimates the revised criteria would result in changes to less than 10% of existing tax-supported ratings. Fitch expects that final criteria will be approved and published in the beginning of the second quarter of 2016. Once approved, the criteria will be applied immediately to any new issue and surveillance rating review. Fitch anticipates the criteria to be applied to all ratings that fall under the criteria within a 12-month period from the final approval date. In addition to the sources of information identified in the applicable criteria specified below, this action was informed by information from CreditScope, Lumesis, IHS (News - Alert), and Zillow Group. Applicable Criteria Exposure Draft: Incorporating Enhanced Recovery Prospects into US Local Tax-Supported Ratings (pub. 02 Feb 2016) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=875108 Exposure Draft: U.S. Tax-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 10 Sep 2015) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=869942 Tax-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 14 Aug 2012) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=686015 U.S. Local Government Tax-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 14 Aug 2012) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=685314 Additional Disclosures Dodd-Frank Rating Information Disclosure Form https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/press_releases/content/ridf_frame.cfm?pr_id=1000822 Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1000822 Endorsement Policy https://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/creditdesk/PolicyRegulation.faces?context=2&detail=31 ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTP://FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON (News - Alert) THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEBSITE 'WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM'. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE 'CODE OF CONDUCT' SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160311005969/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 11, 2016] Fitch Rates Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital (CA) Series 2016 Revs 'AA'; Outlook Stable Fitch Ratings has assigned an 'AA' rating to the approximately $78,140,000 California Health Facilities Financing Authority refunding revenue bonds (Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford) 2016 series A and $100,000,000 California Health Facilities Financing Authority Revenue Bonds (Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford (LPCH)) 2016 series B. In addition, Fitch has affirmed the 'AA' on LPCH's outstanding debt, which is listed at the end of this press release. The series 2016A&B bonds will be fixed rate and the proceeds from the series 2016A will refund the outstanding series 2008A-C bonds and the series 2016B bonds will provide approximately $100 million of funds for the hospital expansion project. The bonds are expected to price the week of March 14th. The Rating Outlook is Stable. SECURITY The bonds are secured by a gross revenue pledge of the obligated group. KEY RATING DRIVERS PREEMINENT PEDIATRIC FACILITY: LPCH provides highly complex pediatric care with a case mix index over 2.0. LPCH is located on Stanford University's (the university; rated 'AAA' by Fitch) campus, and along with Stanford Health Care (SHC; rated 'AA'), the two organizations are the primary clinical affiliates of the Stanford University School of Medicine (SOM). LPCH, SHC and the university are closely aligned, but remain distinct credit entities. In 2014, a branding campaign was launched and LPCH and its affiliated physicians are known as 'Stanford Children's Health'. EXPANDED MARKET FOOTPRINT: LPCH has had strong regional relationships with various adult providers in the community, which continue to grow in addition to significantly expanding its outpatient presence through a primary care network of physician and multispecialty clinics throughout the Bay Area. In addition, new services that are part of LPCH (formerly part of SHC) include fertility and reproductive medicine, which complement its current obstetrics program. There has been steady growth in inpatient volume and increasing acuity while outpatient volume has also been more robust. EXPANSION PROJECT UNDERWAY: LPCH is capacity constrained and is nearing the completion of a $1.2 billion hospital expansion project. The project will add 72 pediatric ICU and 77 acute care beds, provide expanded surgery, imaging and diagnostic capabilities, and add shelled space for future growth. This bond issuance was unexpected but should provide cash flow relief as the series 2016 bond issue is substituting for prior planned amounts to be funded from cash flow. However, Fitch is concerned about the potential for project cost overruns as the budget is currently under review. The construction is expected to be substantially complete in December 2016 with the opening of the facility in summer 2017. PRESSURED BALANCE SHEET: LPCH's balance sheet metrics have historically been light for the 'AA' rating level and it is expected that there will be additional pressure on the balance sheet as the hospital spends its planned $200 million from cash on the project in fiscal 2016 and 2017. STRONG PROFITABILITY: LPCH has consistently produced strong operating and operating EBITDA margins as a result of its focus on lean management, good payor mix for a children's hospital, and benefit from the provider fee. Managed care payors accounted for 53.6% of gross revenues in fiscal 2015 (Aug. 31 year end) while Medi-Cal accounted for 40.2%. ELEVATED DEBT METRICS: Debt metrics are elevated until benefits from the hospital expansion project are realized. Preliminary pro forma maximum annual debt service (MADS) of $36.6 million increased from $31.3 million at the time of the 2014 issuance. Debt service coverage is strong but inflated due to higher than normal realized gains as LPCH has been liquidating investments to cash for the funding of the project with 8.6x coverage through the three months ended Nov. 30, 2015 and 6.1x in fiscal 2015 compared to the 'AA' category of 5.7x. RATING SENSITIVITIES COMPLETION OF EXPANSION PROJECT: While certain metrics are weak relative to 'AA' medians and peers, Fitch is tolerant of the temporary pressure on Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital's financial profile due to the expected benefits of the project, which should result in strengthening key metrics over the medium term as the hospital executes on its strategic growth initiatives. However, additional increases in project cost, a delay in completion or opening or sustained deterioration in key liquidity or profitability metrics could result in negative rating action. CREDIT PROFILE LPCH operates a 266 bed pediatric and obstetric hospital on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto (News - Alert) and 36 beds in several inpatient care units on its license in nearby community hospitals. In addition, LPCH manages several neonatal and pediatric units through joint ventures with other adult providers in the region. LPCH has significantly expanded its outpatient presence with 46 clinic locations throughout the Bay Area and four multispecialty service centers in targeted markets with a goal of having a Stanford Children's Health physician office within 10 miles of every family in the Bay Area. The obligated group includes only the hospital, which accounted for 99% of total assets and 95% of total revenue of the consolidated entity in fiscal 2015 (Aug. 31 year end). Fitch's analysis is based on the consolidated entity. In fiscal 2015, LPCH reported $1.4 billion in total operating revenue. Preeminent Pediatric Facility LPCH has the highest case-mix index compared to other freestanding children's hospitals in California and its high acuity of services has been driven by its centers of excellence as well as its regional outreach with adult providers that has leveraged its depth of pediatric subspecialists and allows lower acuity care to be kept in the community setting. LPCH leads the nation in the number of pediatric solid organ transplants and in fiscal 2015 performed 558 cardiac surgeries and 26 heart transplants. LPCH has aopted a strategic framework called 'Vision 2025', which will focus on advancing academic and clinical excellence, expanding their reach, and creating a value based system. LPCH continues to grow its ambulatory care network and align with physicians especially in primary care. A medical foundation (Packard Children's Health Alliance [PCHA]) was formed in 2011, and aligned with Packard Medical Group, has over 150 physicians and other providers in 21 practices (up from 11 during 2014 review) at 46 locations throughout the Bay Area. PCHA combined with the faculty practice group (over 500 physicians) is known as the Stanford Children's Health Physician Network. Ambulatory care settings include a range of primary and multispecialty centers with additional sites and offerings (after hours) expected. LPCH implemented Epic (an electronic medical record system) in the summer of 2014 without any issues. The total cost was $98 million and fiscal 2014 included one time operating expenses for training of approximately $10 million. PCHA and faculty practice group physicians are on Epic as well as SHC. Other initiatives underway include participating in a narrow network contract with SHC that is offered to employees of LPCH, SHC, and the university with expectations to grow through direct contracting with local employers. Hospital Expansion Project LPCH's current facility was designed for lower acuity services and several ancillary services are shared with SHC. Seismic requirements and the hospital's significant growth in the last 20 years led to the decision to build the expansion project, which will allow for continued growth in high acuity care. The expansion project includes two six story towers - an acute care pavilion (77 beds) and ICU pavilion (72 beds), diagnostic and imaging services including cardiac cath labs, six additional operating rooms, and underground parking. The fifth floor is expected to be initially shelled. The project is on time and expected to be substantially complete in December 2016 with the opening of the facility in summer 2017. The total cost of the project is currently $1.2 billion. As the project is nearing completion, management has been in discussions with the contractor regarding the final cost and the original budget is likely to be exceeded. A major cost overrun would be of concern given LPCH's pressured balance sheet. The sources of funding presented during the series 2014 issuance included $70 million from series 2003 and 2008 bond proceeds, $97 million from Proposition 3 funds (state funds; voter-approved ballot initiative for children's hospital construction), $410 million from series 2012 and 2014 bond proceeds, $200 million from board designated funds, $222 million from fundraising and $202 million from cash flow. With this issuance, the new sources of funding are $70 million from series 2003 and 2008 bond proceeds, $97 million from Proposition 3 funds, $417 million from series 2012 and 2014 bond proceeds, $200 million from board designated funds, $246 million from fundraising, $100 million from series 2016 bonds and $68 million from cash flow. The remaining spend on the project from Dec. 1, 2015 totals $523.1 million and will be funded by $196 million from fundraising, $198 million from board designated funds, $29 million from series 2014 bond proceeds, and $100 million from series 2016 bond proceeds. In addition to expansion project costs, there are annual routine capital spending needs. Track Record in Fundraising LPCH has a strong track record in fundraising through the Lucile Packard Foundation with the last two capital campaigns raising over $1 billion. In the most recent campaign, $264 million was raised for the project and $217 million has been received in cash ($50 million spent through Nov. 30, 2015). LPCH, SOM and Lucile Packard Foundation are currently in the planning stages for the next campaign. Strong Profitability LPCH has strong operating performance with an operating margin of 7.7% in fiscal 2015, 3.8% in fiscal 2014, and 12.7% in fiscal 2013, compared to Fitch's 'AA' category median of 4.9%. The strong performance has been driven by the execution of LPCH's growth strategies and resultant volume growth, in addition to the benefit of the provider fee. The decline in performance in fiscal 2014 was due to the timing of CMS approval for the current provider fee program, in addition to one time operating expenses related to the Epic implementation. The total net benefit from the provider fee program was $36.6 million in fiscal year (FY) 2015, $9.3 million in FY 2014, $59.1 million in fiscal 2013, $35.1 million in fiscal 2012, and $32.9 million in fiscal 2011. The current program is in place till December 2016 and there will be a ballot initiative in November 2016 to make the program permanent. Fiscal 2017 operating performance is likely to be weaker due to one time transition costs to the new facility, and added depreciation and interest expense. However, Fitch expects that fiscal 2018 and beyond will include strengthening metrics as benefits from the expansion project are realized. Pressured Liquidity At Nov. 30, 2015, LPCH had $827 million unrestricted cash and investments which translated to 239.5 days cash on hand and 147.9% cash-to-debt compared to the 'AA' category medians of 289.4 and 201.7%, respectively. Financial projections were unavailable, however, Fitch's expectation is that LPCH's liquidity will decline in FY 2016 and 2017 as the $200 million of board designated funds are spent on the project. LPCH has had higher than normal realized gains in FY 2015 and first quarter 2016 as the organization has been liquidating investments to cash for the funding of the project. LPCH's investments are managed by the university's investment management company. Conservative Debt Profile After the series 2016 issuance, LPCH's pro forma debt totals $659 million and the debt mix is conservative with only 15% variable rate exposure. There are no swaps outstanding. The variable rate exposure is the $100 million series 2014B direct bank loan that is at an indexed floating rate for an initial period of 10 years. The $90 million series 2008A-C bonds were remarketed in 2012 as five-year fixed rate put bonds, and will be refinanced by the series 2016 bonds. Disclosure LPCH has covenanted to provide annual disclosure within 150 days of fiscal year end and quarterly disclosure for the first three quarters within 60 days of quarter end through the Municipal Rule Making Board's EMMA system. Outstanding Debt: --$100,000,000 California Health Facilities Financing Authority revenue bonds (Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford) series 2014A; --$244,600,000 California Health Facilities Financing Authority (CA (News - Alert)) (Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford) revenue bonds series 2012A&B; --$90,290,000 California Health Facilities Financing Authority (CA) (Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford) revenue bonds series 2008A-C. Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'. Applicable Criteria Revenue-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 16 Jun 2014) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=750012 U.S. Nonprofit Hospitals and Health Systems Rating Criteria (pub. 09 Jun 2015) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=866807 Additional Disclosures Dodd-Frank Rating Information Disclosure Form https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/press_releases/content/ridf_frame.cfm?pr_id=1000823 Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1000823 Endorsement Policy https://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/creditdesk/PolicyRegulation.faces?context=2&detail=31 ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTP://FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON (News - Alert) THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEBSITE 'WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM'. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE 'CODE OF CONDUCT' SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160311005980/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a ... Indigenous Peoples of Tkaronto (Toronto) The land I am standing on today is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. I also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Williams Treaty signed with multiple Mississaugas and Chippewa bands. A judge for Ohios Franklin County Court of Common Pleas [official website] on Friday granted an emergency order [text, PDF] allowing 17-year-olds who will turn 18 by the November election to vote in the Ohio primary next week. The case arose after Secretary of State Jon Husted [official website] released a voting manual [text, PDF] in December stating that 17-year-olds could no longer vote in the presidential primary elections as they have since 1981 due an interpretation of the words elections and nominations. The changes prompted nine teens, along with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, to file a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] to request an emergency order to block the implementation of the new interpretations. Judge Richard Frye found: The Ohio General Assembly acted within its Constitutional authority under Article V, 7 to provide by law for choosing delegates to the national presidential nominating conventions. Such law includes R.C. 3503.011 [text] allowing 17-year olds who will be eighteen by the next general election and who wish to affiliate with a specific political party to vote such ballot at the primary election. Plaintiffs are entitled to a Judgment that the Secretary abused his discretion when he revised the Manual and instructed the 88 county Boards of Election otherwise. Husted stated that he will not appeal the decision [press release] since the case would not be resolved by Tuesdays primary. Voting rights have been a contentious issue in the US recently. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] agreed [order, PDF] last week to reconsider [JURIST report] Texas voter identification law before the entire court. Last May the New Hampshire Supreme Court struck down [JURIST report] a 2012 law requiring voters to be state residents, not just domiciled in the state. Last March Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a new law [JURIST report] that made Oregon the first state in the nation to institute automatic voter registration. In November 2014 a federal appeals court rejected [JURIST report] a Kansas rule that required prospective voters to show proof-of-citizenship documents before registering using a federal voter registration form. Oregon Governor Kate Brown [official website] on Friday signed [press release] a bill into law making Oregon the first state to remove coal from its power supply. Senate Bill 1547 [text, PDF] not only not only requires the elimination of coal fired resources but also creates limits on neighboring states as well. Senate Bill 1547 requires electric companies to remove all coal fired resources by January 1, 2030 and incentivizes them to use other forms of clean energy such as coal to offset the impact of climate change. Upon signing, Brown said: Knowing how important it is to Oregonians to act on climate change, a wide range of stakeholders came to the table around Oregonians investments in coal and renewable energy. Working together, they found a path to best equip our state with the energy resource mix of the future. Now, Oregon will be less reliant on fossil fuels and shift our focus to clean energy. Im proud to sign a bill that moves Oregon forward, together with the shared values of current and future generations. The bill also creates avenues for consumers to transition into becoming community suppliers and partners of new forms of energy in the coming years. Creating forms of clean energy to offset the impact of climate changes is a highly contested issue. In February the US Supreme Court [official website] ordered that the Obama administration delay enforcement [JURIST report] of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) pending a resolution to legal challenges. The request to block the implementation of the CPP was made in late January, with states insisting [JURIST report] that the plans implementation would create a burden. In June the Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] 5-4 that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not make regulations regarding the toxic emissions of power plants without considering costs. In August the EPA proposed new rules [JURIST report] to cut methane emissions by the oil and gas industry as part of the Obama administrations commitment to taking action on climate change. [JURIST] The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), comprised of Syrian opposition groups, stated Friday that they will attend peace discussions with the Damascus government facilitated by the UN that will begin on Monday. The HNC seeks [AP report] a transitional government with full executive powers, and no role for President Bashar al-Assad [official website] or his associates. These peace negotiations will likely discuss possible federal division [Reuters report] of Syria. Last month the UN Security Council [official website] approved the Syria ceasefire plan, which has been successful [JURIST reports] so far. These peace talks will follow the first round of negotiations that failed in early February during a Russian-backed government offensive. The Syrian Civil War [JURIST backgrounder] has been ongoing since 2011 when opposition groups first began protesting the regime of President Assad, and the increasingly bloody nature of the conflict has put pressure on the international community to intervene. Earlier this week, Amnesty International reported [JURIST report] that Russian and Syrian armed forces are deliberately attacking hospitals and other medical facilities as part of a military strategy to clear the way to northern Aleppo. Just prior, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee passed [press release] two resolutions calling for an international tribunal in the Middle East to address the alleged war crimes [JURIST report] committed by the government of Syria and its allies, specifically Russia and Iran. In February the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights reported that the Syrian government is systematically exterminating detainees [JURIST report]. In November Human Rights Watch released a report stating that the practice of caging captured soldiers and civilians constitutes hostage-taking [JURIST report] and an outrage against their personal dignity. [JURIST] Cooperation among judges is vital to combating terrorism and upholding the rule of law around the world, UN officials said Thursday. In an effort to [promote] counter-terrorism measures within the human rights and legal frameworks, the UN brought together Supreme Court justices from around the world at an event sponsored by the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) [official website]. The justices presented in interactive panels, sharing the particular challenges of upholding the laws of their nations in the face of terror. In order to alleviate some challenges, the justices also discussed ways to prevent wrongdoers from utilizing loopholes in the law of one nation to perpetrate terroristic acts in another. The discussions were held as part of CTEDs partnership with the Global Center on Cooperative Security and the South Asia Judges Project, and was one of a series of workshops attended by representatives of the members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation [official websites]. Terrorism remains a constant threat worldwide. Earlier this month a UN report outlined [JURIST report] despair and acts of terror in conflict areas in Eastern Ukraine. Last month Amnesty International criticized [JURIST report] the state of justice in Iraq, after a court in that country sentenced 40 men to death on terrorism charges. In January Saudi Arabia executed [JURIST report] 47 prisoners convicted on terrorism charges. [JURIST] West Virginia and South Dakota on Thursday enacted controversial laws limiting abortions. In West Virginia, lawmakers overrode Governor Earl Ray Tomblins [official profile] veto [JURIST report] and passed a law [SB 10] preventing the dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, widely held to be the safest second-trimester abortion method. Tomblin vetoed the bill citing patient health concerns and worries that the law may be unconstitutional, as courts overturned similar laws in Oklahoma and Kansas in 2015. Unless courts intervene, the law will go into effect in May. Also Thursday, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard [official profile] signed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act [text], which bans abortions after 20 weeks. Similar laws are in force in 12 states, but courts have overturned such laws in Arizona, Georgia and Idaho. Abortion procedures and reproductive rights issues have been controversial topics throughout the US. Last month the Indiana Senate released a bill [JURIST report] from committee that would ban abortions based on genetic disabilities and would also require aborted or miscarried fetuses to be cremated or interred. Also last month the Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed [JURIST report] a lower court decision upholding a law that restricts use of medication abortion drugs. In November the US Supreme Court granted certiorari [JURIST report] to decide whether a Texas law, which requires that clinics have similar facilities to surgical center, posed an undue burden on the availability of abortion on the state. Alerted by Facebook post, police thwart suicide bid A Facebook post of a college student about his intention to kill self on Thursday prompted police to intervene, and a life was saved. Auschwitz survivor is world's oldest man - Guinness World Records A survivor of the Auschwitz death camp is now the world's oldest man, the Guinness World Records organisation says. Birgunj Customs struggling to meet revenue target Birgunj Customs Office has been struggling to meet its revenue target even after a month since the lifting of border restrictions. Breaking the sound barrier Agents of change from the deaf and hard of hearing community are forging new opportunities for themselves in a tone-deaf society Cambodia Netherlands: Fugitive paedophile Pieter Ceulen arrested A convicted Dutch paedophile who was on the run from a 19-year prison sentence has been arrested in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. Dahal assures of exploring all alternatives to import gas UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Saturday assured of ending shortage of cooking gas in the market and of pressing the government to import the commodity from China. Demand for local herbal products up Although the five-month-long Indian trade embargo has hit industrial, trade and business activities, it has proven a boon for the manufacturers of herbal products. Glocalising Nepal At a time when the country was reeling under the pressure of declared and undeclared nakabandi pushing the export and import sectors to an almost standstill, and sending the whole of the economy into the hands of profiteers and black-marketers, a colleague of mine daringly came out with a book on global trade and marketing, of course, with a Nepali perspective. Indian authorities build road inside no-mans-land Indian authorities have black-topped a 3-km road that was built encroaching no-mans-land along the Nepal-India border. Jajarkot declared fully literate Jajarkot district has achieved fully literate status after 95 percent of the adults (15-60 years) became able to read and write, thanks to the nationwide literacy campaign launched by the government. PAC orders supply ministry to furnish clarification Amid criticism fuelled by Nepal Oil Corporations controversial decision to give the go-ahead to the controversial Birat Petroleum (BP) to sell petrol, the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has sought clarification from the Ministry of Supplies (MoS) on the legitimacy and purpose of letting the private company to trade fuel at an exorbitant price. Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years. Probe into Tarai violence: UN The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced concerns over slow progress in Nepals transition to peace and pervasive impunity in the country. Quake, dry spell worsen Valleys water woes A long dry spell, on top of the impact of last years earthquakes on groundwater, is feared to worsen the already acute water crisis in Kathmandu Valley in the next four months starting March. Woman attacked with acid in Dang Two unidentified persons attacked a woman with acid at Gulariya of Ghorahi Municipality-2 in Dang district on Thursday night. 1. Yes. Its important to cast my votes early and avoid the lines on Election Day. 2. Yes. With nearly two weeks of early voting, its a more convenient way to take part. 3. No. Its better to wait until Election Day, in case any last-minute information surfaces. 4. No. Im not planning to vote early or on Election Day. It isnt worth my time. 5. Unsure. It depends on how the campaigns are shaping up. Ill play it by ear. Vote View Results This page has found a new home ANGOLA Planning is underway for Boomerang Backpacks signature fundraiser, Derby Bash, that will be held 1-4 p.m., Saturday, May 7, at 6 Autumns Food & Spirits, 3855 N. S.R. 127. Boomerang Backpacks is a free, weekend food distribution program during the school year. While the programs mission is feeding hungry children, Bill Stockberger, Boomerang Backpacks executive director in Fort Wayne, said its a lot more. It provides community service opportunities for at-risk youth and provides work-based learning experiences for special needs children. The program started as a grassroots effort in Kendallville in 2008, but its grown. Currently, the program feeds more than 4,000 students in 40 elementary schools in northeast Indiana in the counties of Steuben, DeKalb, Noble, Whitley, Kosciusko, Allen and LaGrange. People have fallen into the cracks and its a program thats needed. Its feeling good about feeding kids in the community, Stockberger said. Stockberger pointed out it costs around $100 a year to feed a child for a school year through the program. Funded by donations and grants, the program is run by older students. Older students do ordering and distributing. Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity at Trine (University) delivers to Carlin Park and Hendry Park. Harold Chevrolet delivers to Pleasant Lake. Choice (students) pack backpacks and do ordering. Prairie Heights has the Leo Club. Fremont has its student council and Hamilton has its special needs students and the Hamilton Lions, he said. Theres ownership by the people who run it. Its only as good as the people involved with it. Last year was the first year for the Derby Bash. It raised more than $13,000 and was attended by 85 people. The first year was phenomenal, Stockberger said. All the money raised in Steuben County stays here at all seven elementaries, Hendry Park, Ryan Park, Carlin Park, Fremont, Pleasant Lake, Hamilton and Prairie Heights. Derby Bash tickets are two for $100 and includes bourbon, wine and beer tasting and bourbon-themed food sampling. Music will be played by Island Vibe. Once again, a hat contest will be held with prizes for largest, most original, most glamorous and funniest. Parkview Health is the presenting sponsor. Other sponsorships are available. For more details or for tickets, contact Stockberger at 667-7423 or bill.stockberger@boomerangbackpacks.org. Carol (Korthauer) Polodna, 49, died peacefully March 10, 2016, at her home, surrounded by the family she loved. Carol fought bravely against the ravages of breast cancer for the last four years of her life. Carol grew up in Houston, Minn., and graduated in 1985, from Houston High School. She discovered a passion for teaching at Winona State University, where she graduated with a bachelors degree in elementary education. She continued her formal education after graduation and acquired a masters degree in education while simultaneously teaching and raising a family. Carol married Mark Polodna in 1988, while still in college. They made their home in Winona, Minn. Carol began her teaching career in the preschool room at Cochrane-Fountain City, and soon after returned to her roots in the Houston Elementary School as a first-grade teacher. One of her greatest delights and accomplishments as a teacher was helping those young students learn to read. Later on she joined with a handful of teachers that formed the Minnesota Virtual Academy in Houston. She taught students in all grade levels, with curriculum selected for their individual needs. She enjoyed this busy phase in her career and continued teaching unabated until sidelined by disability. Carol was the embodiment of what it means to be a good daughter, sister, friend, wife, teacher and mother. Together with her husband, she raised three beautiful and talented children. She was a wise and patient mother. Carol was preceded in death by her parents, Armin and Donna Mae Korthauer of Houston, Minn. Carol is deeply missed by her husband and her three children, Taylor (Holly) of Golden, Colo., Connor and Morgan. She is survived by three brothers and one sister, Richard (Margaret) of Mondovi, Wis., Dale (Lisa) of Stewartville, Minn., Gary (Karen) of Savage, Minn., and Janet (Thomas) Freudenstein of Shakopee, Minn. She will be missed by her nieces and nephews. A memorial service of remembrance will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 19, 2016, at Central Lutheran Church in Winona. A luncheon will follow the service. Visitation will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, March 18, at the church, and also one hour prior to the service on Saturday. A private burial of her cremains will follow at a later date. Flowers or gifts are not necessary. Please share your generosity with a stranger or offer a hand-up to someone in need. Hug your mother. Love your children. Learn something new. Teach. Please share a memory of Carol with her family in the online guestbook at www.hofffuneral.com. DEAR AMY: We first met when I was 14 and he was 16, but when we reconnected we were both married to other people, and we left our spouses for each other. We were married for six years. This ended up being a very toxic and at times abusive relationship. Then an old friend that I dated when I was 18 re-entered my life. I started an affair with him and haven't looked back. My husband found out very quickly and we divorced. My current lover was also in a relationship when we began our affair. I am 47 and he is 48. He was/is dating a woman 16 years older than he is. She happens to have lots of disposable income. She is basically his "sugar mama." He admits that he's never been in love with her, but he respects her and feels guilty and obligated to her because of all the "gifts" she showers upon him. My lover is a very attractive and charming divorced father of four. He doesn't want a relationship unless it involves love and mutual respect. We have been dating for almost a year. His sugar mama knows about me but refuses to give up on the relationship. He promises me he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, but he continues to accept gifts and go on "dates" with her. She has given him property, vehicles, clothes, trips, you name it. He swears that eventually he will end it, but he's trying to figure out how to do it gracefully. I am a smart, attractive, reasonably level-headed woman with a good job, and so far I have done OK supporting myself. The logical part of me says he will never leave her as long as she keeps showering him with what she substitutes for love, money, gifts, etc. I feel like this woman is preying on his vulnerability. He is a very soft-hearted guy and feels like his word is his bond. At one time he did promise her that he would never leave her. I love him and don't want to give him up, but am I playing a losing hand? Lovesick in Texas DEAR LOVESICK: My first piece of advice is that you should never attend a high school reunion. These high school hookups are not working out for you. You seem to want to claim some relationship high road, but according to your own narrative, you have a habit of overlapping relationships, each marriage ended after you had already taken up with your next partner. I suggest that you stop focusing on the "sugar baby," and take a very hard look in the mirror. Your relationships do not reflect ethical choices or high self-esteem on your part. And, of course, you are with someone who doesn't seem to value you very much. It might be messy, but it wouldn't be hard for him to end the other relationship. All he would need is a dump truck and the will to stop accepting gifts, along with the guts to offload the many gifts he has accepted under questionable and unethical pretense. DEAR AMY: I am having trouble deciding whether to travel to an old friend's birthday party. I haven't seen this friend in nearly 20 years, but we have re-connected through social media. She's renting a cabin for the weekend, asking for donations of money and food, and inviting several other friends from that time period to help celebrate. My problem is that I'm not sure how much effort to make on behalf of friendships that share only the past. This party would require me to take three days off work, drive 12 hours round trip, and contribute food, liquor, cash and a gift. How do I decide if it's worth my effort? Trouble Deciding DEAR TROUBLE: The best way to push an old friendship into the "current" category is to spend face time with the person. However, my theory is that when people lead their account with a list of roadblocks (as you have done), they aren't really motivated to personally connect. In your case the roadblocks are significant. You don't sound eager to go, so send your best wishes. DEAR AMY: "George's Wife" complained about her husband's lack of grooming on the weekends. You defended him! I wonder how he would feel if she stopped bathing, shaving, etc. whenever she felt like it. Disgusted DEAR DISGUSTED: Good point. Game on! MADISON Former Madison Mayor William Bill Dyke, whose defeat in the 1973 election ushered in a new era of liberal dominance in city politics, died late Thursday of pancreatic cancer in a Dodgeville nursing home. He was 85. The two-term mayor was ousted by then-political newcomer Paul Soglin as political divides deepened in Madison during the Vietnam War. Seeking a new direction, Dyke moved to Mount Horeb and went on to run for governor and vice president before settling in Iowa County, where he was a successful attorney and served two decades as a circuit judge. He also had a creative bent, with paintings and a successful B-movie under his belt. He was the last common sense, conservative mayor of Madison, said former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who appointed Dyke as judge in 1996. Dyke left the bench in January and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February. He succumbed to the disease Thursday at Bloomfield Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center. An Illinois native, Dyke came to Madison for law school in 1955 and worked during school as a radio and TV announcer for WISC. After finishing school he became an attorney, and in 1967, nearly upset Mayor Otto Festge. After a recount, the race was decided by 62 votes out of more than 35,000 cast. Dyke ran again two years later, prevailing over liberal candidate Robert Reynolds. His two two-year terms were marked by unrest in Madison as widespread Vietnam War protests and the Sterling Hall bombing garnered national attention. A political conservative, Dyke was best known during his mayoral years for his opposition to the citys purchase of Madison Bus Co. to create a publicly owned transit system. He focused on keeping municipal costs low, opposing an airport expansion and several collective bargaining agreements, and he routinely clashed with a group of young, left-leaning council members, including Soglin. Obviously the 1970s were a very challenging period for Mayor Dyke and myself, Soglin said. Like so many Madisonians, we had strenuous disagreements over issues arising out of the war in Vietnam. Seeing no other viable conservative to face Soglin, Dyke waited until the final days before the 1973 filing deadline to declare his candidacy for a third term. Dyke was backed by five former mayors and numerous civic groups and carried a majority of districts, but Soglin prevailed on a groundswell of support in the campus, Downtown and East Side districts. Soglin said tensions between the political rivals eased over the years when they had a chance to debate weekly on WISC-TV in the 1980s. That brought us closer together and gave us an understanding of one another, Soglin said. I think we saw an appreciation for our respective commitment to the city. By then Dyke had moved out of the city, starting a general contracting business in Mount Horeb and breeding horses for one of his daughters. Shortly after his exit from the mayors office, Dyke returned to politics, challenging Democratic incumbent Gov. Patrick Lucey in 1974. Dyke won 42 percent of the vote in an election Thompson described as a Democratic year. He was the first candidate to run for governor right after Watergate, Thompson said. The image of the party was at an all-time low back then, and it was impossible for Republicans to win statewide. Voicing skepticism about Republicans ability to recover from the scandal, Dyke briefly left the party in 1976 to run for vice president on the American Independent Party ticket alongside former Georgia governor and noted segregationist Lester Maddox. Dyke immediately distanced himself from Maddoxs segregationist views during the campaign, telling the Wisconsin State Journal in August 1976 that the he and Maddox recognize the possibility of differences and can go forward from there. I think he felt at the time that he wanted to have a voice in the debate in the country, his son, Wade, 58, said Friday. The Maddox-Dyke ticket received less than 1 percent of the vote in the general election, and Dyke returned to Wisconsin to work as a family mediation lawyer in Mineral Point. But despite his conservative record, Dyke could be profoundly progressive. While he was mayor, he proposed a smoking ban in the city council chamber, as well as a city-sponsored alcoholic treatment program. As judge, he was an early adopter of restorative justice efforts, establishing one of the states first teen courts where young offenders are sentenced by a jury of their peers. In 2008, he added a mediation program in Iowa County to help struggling homeowners resolve mortgage defaults without facing foreclosure. FORT MCCOY After four years as garrison commander of Fort McCoy, Col. Steven Nott handed the reins over to Col. David Pinter Sr. during a change-of-command ceremony Friday morning at Fort McCoy. For a garrison commander to serve four years is unusual, said Joe Capps, executive director to the Commanding General U.S. Army Installation Management Command. Normally a garrison commander serves two years, sometimes three, he said. Notts four years were time well-spent, Capps said. His enthusiastic interaction with congressional staff, city and county leaders, schools ... has continually elevated the presence of Fort McCoy, he said. Steve was clearly the right leader at the right time to lead a garrison here at Fort McCoy. ... (his) leadership will no doubt stand the test of time. Nott said leading Fort McCoy was a daunting task but was made easy with the help of his command team. I can tell you that having such highly-knowledgeable and dedicated professionals makes the job of command very easy, he said. No matter the crisis or the challenge, Fort McCoy has the expertise to rise to the occasion and to exceed all expectations. Over the last four years, this team has set very high goals and we have surpassed most of them. The last four years at Fort McCoy, Nott said, have been rewarding for him and his family. This has been a remarkable ride, he said. Charlotte and I have enjoyed every location the Army has sent us, but I can honestly tell you this there is no other assignment in the Army that my family and I have found as rewarding as Fort McCoy, and there was no other position I could ever desire to conclude my whole military career than as your commander. It has been an honor to be a participant in the history and heritage of Fort McCoy. Capps said that while Nott will be missed, Pinter will be a tremendous soldier to serve as the new installation commander. Col. David Pinter is a proven leader, Capps said. Hes ideally suited to lead the Fort McCoy installation team in support of priorities and requirements set by the senior commander. Nott advised Pinter to embrace the Fort McCoy staff and surrounding communities. Col. Pinter, you are being handed a silver platter, just as I was four years ago, he said. If you love this staff, they will love you back. These are Midwesterners, and that means theyre stubborn. I mean that as a compliment if you tell them that something cant be done, get out of the way; they are going to prove you wrong. Listen to them, and you will lead this installation to new heights. Nott said Pinter and his family will be greeted by a friendly and welcoming community. I also know this community is going to welcome Sheila and your kids like they welcomed my family, Nott said. Life is very good here. Enjoy this moment because its going to be over all too fast. Pinter, who received his Army commission in 1989 from the University of Iowa ROTC program, looks forward to serving at Fort McCoy. Im very humbled and excited to be provided this opportunity to command garrison Fort McCoy, he said. Yesterday I received a glimpse of Fort McCoys greatest resources, its professionals. ... It is very apparent to me that the Fort McCoy garrison team is forward-thinking and driven. Pinter pledged to continue the efforts to expand our customer base and continue the community outreach programs and initiate the campaign to inform, educate and invite our senior military and civilian leaders to experience the state-of-the-art training and world-class professionals here at Fort McCoy. I appreciate the opportunity to command and lead the team here at Fort McCoy. DULUTH, Minn. The scar on Zac Zimmermans left arm is still visible. Its a daily reminder of his suicide attempt, which led to a string of events that landed him in jail. He said he was paranoid and felt like hospital staff were out to get him. Zimmerman tried to choke a nurse. The 22-year-old was charged with second- and third-degree assault in the 2013 incident. After two weeks in the psychiatric unit, he went to jail for three months. He wasnt sentenced to three months; that was how long it took for the court process to play out. My anxiety was to the point that I couldnt move my hand, had no feeling in it, he said. When I get nervous I chew my nails. I bit my fingernails all the way out. It was that bad. Zimmerman is one of thousands of Minnesotans in jail who suffer from mental illness. While in jail, some stop taking their medication. Their stays behind bars may last for weeks, even months. Public safety officials have complained for years that jails are de facto holding facilities for the mentally ill. Legislation in 2013 that aimed to reduce the length of time those inmates spend behind bars has made some progress, but hasnt solved the problem. The so-called 48-hour rule requires that certain inmates committed to the state Department of Human Services receive treatment within two days of a judges order. Judges can issue commitment orders when patients appear to be a danger to themselves or others. According to Minnesota Department of Human Services data, 25 percent of those subject to the 48-hour rule missed the window, which means they were in jail longer than the law allowed. Issues with the mental health system have prompted the state legislative auditors office to look into how people with mental illness fare in the criminal justice system. The office plans to release a report Thursday at a Senate committee hearing. The report is expected to detail whether jails provide mental health services consistent with state laws and whether the state provides adequate treatment in the community to reduce repeated offenses. It is expected to raise questions of whether the Department of Human Services has complied with the 48-hour rule. Since July 2013, when the law took effect, through January of this year, DHS admitted 573 jail inmates to state-operated mental health treatment facilities. Of those, 323 were subject to the 48-hour rule. The state found beds for 243 of them, while 80 missed the window, according to DHS. Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek argues that jails arent medical facilities appropriate for treating mentally ill inmates. He said DHS officials need to secure funding to open up more beds for people with mental illness. They know perfectly well that in some cases they are skirting the law, or just outright not complying, Stanek said. DHS officials blame most failures to get people into treatment quickly enough on law enforcements slow transfer of inmates. According to DHS, slow transfers by law enforcement were responsible for 61 inmates detention beyond the two-day limit. In 10 cases, the cause was a lack of available beds. The remaining nine cases were ascribed to staff errors or are still being reviewed. Department of Human Services Commissioner Emily Johnson Piper declined an interview request for this story, but she sent a statement. We all share deep respect for our states mental health professionals, law enforcement partners and other stakeholders, Piper said. And we are hopeful there will be broad support for the significant investments needed for our Direct Care and Treatment facilities and programs. While sheriffs and county attorneys say mentally ill patients languish in jail longer than they should, staff at the Anoka-Metro Regional Treatment Center say their facility has been flooded with violent patients coming from jail since the 48-hour rule became law. In April, the state began to decrease the capacity at the states second-largest psychiatric hospital from 110 to 95 beds because of staffing and patient safety issues. The hospital is at capacity. But the legislative auditor found 30 to 40 percent of the patients there no longer needed that hospital level of care. For reasons that were not made clear, they need to be detained in a secure facility. People have different problems at different times and need to be treated specific to what they need at that point in their lives, Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles said. And that is particularly challenging. Even with the 48-hour rule, state law doesnt limit the length of time mentally ill inmates stay in jail after theyre booked and before a commitment order is issued. The 48-hour rule kicks in after a judge issues a commitment order. It takes time to get inmates evaluated and diagnosed with a mental illness. Thats not going to happen in 48 hours, said St. Louis County Judge Sally Tarnowski. Hennepin County District Judge Jay Quam estimated that half of those who get evaluated and are found incompetent dont fit the commitment order criteria, and therefore arent subject to the 48-hour rule. Theyre so mentally ill that theyre not able to be handled in the criminal justice system, theyre incompetent, he said. But because there is a different standard for commitment they may not satisfy that and they end up just being sent out in the street to begin the process again. The legislative auditors report will focus on people with mental illness who are taken into custody by law enforcement. Its expected to look at existing community-based facilities and address whether theyre fit to serve that population. Zimmerman, the 22-year-old who attacked a hospital nurse, wasnt subject to the 48-hour rule. He accepted a plea deal that called for three months in a mental health treatment facility, five years probation and participation in a mental health court that helps him navigate the system. Hed like to travel again. Before his suicide attempt, he would jump on trains, hitchhike and sleep in farm fields. There is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, Zimmerman said. I know what happens or what can happen if I stop taking medication. I just feel that it keeps me stable. In advance of Sunshine Week, Gov. Scott Walker is ordering his administration to improve its handling of public records requests, speed up response times and provide mandatory records training for all state workers. The move comes months after he helped draft legislation, later withdrawn, to severely restrict the kind of information the public can use to learn about how state and local governments work on behalf of taxpayers. Walker is also fighting a lawsuit over his refusal to disclose certain records by saying they were part of a deliberative process. Walker on Friday issued an executive order that emphasizes a number of areas in the states Public Records Law, including responding to requests quickly and not charging for electronic responses to requests when possible. The order directs all state agencies to: Implement best practices in processing records requests. Create a system that allows the public to track how well state agencies respond to requests. Require records training for all state employees. Fulfill any small and straightforward request within 10 business days whenever it is practicable to do so. Acknowledge in one business day the receipt of a request through an official email address. Respond to a requester within five days when asked for an update. Develop a system to track requests. Under the order, a state agency will be regularly evaluated by the Department of Administration on its adherence to the new rules. Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said Walkers order is welcome news. The governors executive order establishes clear rules and goals for state agencies to meet, he said. If followed, it would represent an improvement over past practice for many agencies. Lueders pointed out that some of the order restates what has been determined by court rulings and recommended by the state Department of Justice but it is nonetheless good to see. He said the most significant requirement is the allocation of sufficient staff resources to create the tracking system and directing DOA to work with Cabinet agencies to assess performance. It is my hope and expectation that state agencies will take this seriously, and that records access will improve, from the governors office on down, Lueders said. Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said the new standardized practices go above and beyond the requirements of the records law and will support an open and transparent government for our citizens. She said the directive should not require new agency spending. The executive order comes eight months after lawmakers attempted through the 2015-17 budget process to significantly reduce public scrutiny of lawmakers by shielding most of their records from public view. The effort was quashed after massive public outcry. It also comes after the liberal advocacy group Center for Media and Democracy filed a lawsuit last year to obtain records related to the Walker administrations proposed changes to the University of Wisconsin Systems mission statement, known as the Wisconsin Idea. The Walker administration, which pulled back on the changes, denied the group and media outlets, including the Wisconsin State Journal, access to the records by saying they were part of a deliberative process. The Legislatures effort to diminish transparency prompted the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the Madison chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists to create a statewide tour next week to promote the states open records law. The order comes ahead of Sunshine Week, a national celebration of open government. It runs from Sunday through March 19. Walker issued an executive order declaring next week Sunshine Week. Since Walker took office, his office has released more than 6 million pages of documents in response to requests, the office said. He has received 841 requests to date compared to 360 received by predecessor Gov. Jim Doyle through the same period. Records show that the majority of Wisconsin state agencies rely heavily on professional spokespeople to communicate with the media, at times blocking access to thousands of employees, a practice open government advocates say restricts access to information and shields the government from public scrutiny. Only two of the states 20 designated agencies the Department of Transportation and the Commissioner of Insurance have open door policies where front-line workers are authorized to talk with reporters without first getting clearance from communication officials, according to a Tribune review of agency policies. Five other agencies have policies that allow direct contact under certain circumstances. At the other three quarters of agencies and the Department of Justice media calls whether for interviews or simple questions are funneled through communications departments. These spokespeople can provide convenient one-stop service, connecting reporters to the right people and providing accurate information on tight deadlines. But special treatment can also serve to filter access to key sources and information. Its part of a tried and true strategy to be able to control the message that is provided to the news media, said Mike Wagner, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It makes it harder to scrutinize public agencies if the people who are allowed to talk to the media are only those in official spokesperson capacities. We can learn a lot more about how our government operates, why its doing what its doing and to what effect if were allowed to hear from more people, especially the experts who are working within the state government. Spokespeople for some of the states largest and most scrutinized agencies say centralized communication policies are necessary to ensure a clear and consistent message, especially on topics of statewide significance. Thats not surprising to Don Moynihan, a professor in the University of Wisconsins La Follette School of Public Affairs. I think in general the Walker administration has been concerned about being consistent about their message across agencies, Moynihan said. As an administration they have been concerned about being consistent in their messaging and not having multiple voices contradicting senior people. The Department of Natural Resources allows its 3,750 employees to answer routine media questions on the spot but relies on spokespeople for topics considered controversial or of statewide or regional significance. At an agency this large its important that on these complex topics that we have that one voice, said communications director George Althoff. We cant be saying one thing about frac sand mining in one part of the state and something else in another part of the state. The Department of Workforce Developments policy requires employees to notify the communications office before any contact with reporters. Communications director John Dipko said the policy makes exceptions in some cases, such as regular media calls to the departments regional labor market economists, but he defended the need to have a communications office to coordinate the agencys messages. Theres a strong public interest in having accurate and complete and consistent information about our agency and our programs, Dipko said. Theres an understanding that local information will be provided. However, thats also an opportunity to make sure the regional subject matter expert has the appropriate context, broader context to help inform the interviewer. While the policy has been in place since at least 2008, the agencys monthly and quarterly employment data came under intense scrutiny after Gov. Scott Walker promised to add 250,000 private sector jobs during his first term, prompting the agency exert greater control over shaping the message around those numbers. There was a lot of misunderstanding about the job numbers, about the different series that are produced, what they mean and how they fit within the broader context with other economic indicators, Dipko said. It was important, and really in the publics best interest, for us to be as clear and as consistent and as concise as possible with providing good, accurate data about the state of the labor market. But reporters note that such policies have made it difficult to talk with front-line workers about things that were once routine such as the number of wells being monitored in a certain county often giving members of the general public better access than the media. I dont think theyre only applying that in situations where they need to, said Bill Lueders, an investigative reporter and president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. Theyre applying it across the board. Policies vary A review of records shows centralized communications policies arent new, or unique to the current administration. The degree of enforcement is harder to quantify. Wagner said it seems state agencies have been moving in the direction of controlled access in recent years. Procedures vary from agency to agency. Most have written guidelines as part of their policies or employee handbooks. Others have a tacit understanding that media calls should go through a designated spokesperson. In some cases, agency workers are required to write down reporter questions and forward them to Madison before answering. In other cases, reporters are allowed to speak only with agency spokespeople. Some agencies go so far as to provide a scripted statement that workers are directed to read if contacted by reporters, generally redirecting the calls to a spokesperson. There is no written policy at the Department of Revenue, but communications director Stephanie Marquis said the roughly 1,000 workers there generally check with her before responding. Though allowed to answer questions directly, Marquis said most employees choose not to, often out of fear of being part of a negative story. The thing I think people have a hard time with is a lot of people dont want to talk to reporters, she said. Maj. Paul Rickert, pubic affairs officer for the Department of Military Affairs, echoed that sentiment. While there is no written policy in place, Rickert said most of the 2,450 state and military employees tend to shy away from media contact. Most people in my profession dont want my job, he said. Its almost reflexive if an individual gets a phone call it comes to me. Timely and accurate responses Most public information officers are knowledgeable and eager to help reporters find the information they need. They serve as one-stop-shops for basic questions, or set up interviews with those best positioned to answer more complex queries. PIOs say they help avoid the black hole effect, when reporters dont know where to find information within sometimes vast agencies or leave messages with employees who may be out of the office or who dont understand the urgency of media deadlines. Althoff noted the DNR last year handled more than 3,100 media inquiries, of which he estimates half were answered within 24 hours. At the Department of Health Services, employees are supposed to send reporter calls to the communications office, which determines who should answer questions. Most often we send them back to the person (they called), said Communications Director Julie Lund. Its so we have a good gauge... Just so we know. This is a very customer-friendly agency. Lund said her level of involvement would depend on the issue. She added that some employees prefer someone else to handle media questions. Some people are very comfortable talking to the media, she said. Some are not. While state law requires public agencies to make records available, there is no statutory requirement for workers to talk to the press. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, a semi-public agency that replaced the Department of Commerce in 2011, prohibits employees other than the CEO from talking to media without prior authorization. But communications director Steve Michels said he routinely sets up reporter interviews with staff members. Its a policy designed to make sure we get the right subject matter experts talking to the right people, Michels said. Other departments point out in their policies that public information officers know of new developments or things going on in another part of the organization that not all employees are aware of. There are new developments every day at the Department, many of which originate in the Secretarys Office. It is important that the reporter be given the most up-to-date information available, the DWD policy states. Division staffers may not have this information yet, but the Communications Office often will, or can obtain it quickly. But just as they can be conduits of information, PIOs can also block access to key players and control access to information about the workings of public institutions. Its always better for public understanding of important policy issues for reporters to be able to talk to the most knowledgeable people, said Mark Pitsch, an editor at the Wisconsin State Journal and president of the Madison chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Sometimes public information officers can facilitate that. I think all journalists have found that PIOs can throw up roadblocks too I would come down on the side of having reporters talk to people with the most knowledge of the subject at hand. At some agencies, even talking to a public information officer is a challenge. Many departments require questions to be submitted in writing and answer with written statements. Thats a practice public relations experts say discourages two-way conversation and understanding. In order to have communication someone needs to be able to respond back. Heres what Ive heard you say. Is this correct? said Stephanie Hungerford, who teaches public relations at Marquette University. Unfortunately that takes that opportunity away to a certain extent. Communication directors at the Department of Administration and Department of Children and Families would not grant interviews about their own media policies. Very, very, very controlled The DNRs policy stipulates that staff consult with the communications department to formulate responses before talking to reporters about a variety of topics, including anything to do with the governor, the legislature, or the budget and major environmental issues such as mine permitting, air fees. All calls from certain news organizations also require a consultation with the communications office, which Althoff said reflects the fact that those outlets typically have a statewide audience and tend to be interested in controversial topics with wide policy implications. Althoff said all DNR workers are empowered to speak about certain topics, though not all feel comfortable talking to the media. One former mid-level manager who left the DNR last year said he was allowed to speak to the media but felt limited in what he could say. It was very, very, very controlled, he said. I had very tight guidelines if you asked anything that was in any way shape or form controversial we had to use the talking points or send them upstairs. The employee, who asked not to be named, said the censorship started during the Doyle administration but really ramped up under Walker, especially during his presidential campaign. Althoff defended the agencys use of designated spokespeople on key issues. Its important that we have subject matter experts, he said. Were giving you the people who know the most about that topic. However, another former DNR worker voiced frustration at having to answer questions through a department spokesperson who wasnt knowledgeable about a project. It wasnt like there was any filtering or hiding, she said. Just extra steps. Nothing new Centralized communication policies are not new. Historic policy documents were not available at many state agencies, but some referenced media policies that date back a decade or more. Stephanie Marquis, a former reporter who has worked in state government since 2003, said centralized communications policies have always been the standard at agencies where she has worked. The Department of Justice released emails from 2005, when former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager instructed employees to direct all media calls to the departments new communications director. One of the states most open departments, The Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, sent a memo to all employees in February 2003, reminding them not to speculate on departmental policies as new Gov. Jim Doyles began work on his first budget. This all started under Doyle, said Lueders, who has worked as a reporter for some of the news organizations the DNR handles with spokespeople. Its gone to where everything is clamped down, and everything is in the hands of the spinsters, Lueders said. It takes you at least one step removed from the people who know the most about whats going on. While centralized communications policies have been in place for years, several state agencies have adopted or changed theirs in recent years. Records show eight of the 20 agencies updated their policies since 2014. The DNR last year drafted a new communications policy that Althoff expects will be adopted this year. Most recently, the Wisconsin Historical Society developed a media policy in 2015 as the agencys budget request for a $178 million new history museum in Madison generated heightened media attention. An open door Not every state department relies so heavily on spokespeople. At the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, one of the states largest agencies, project manager and even engineers field calls directly from reporters. While the public affairs office in Madison handles some questions, the agencys regional spokespeople generally direct reporters to workers with direct knowledge of the topic. The DOT provides basic spokesperson training to project managers in order to make them more comfortable and adept at fielding questions and doing on-air interviews. Patty Mayers, director of the office of public affairs, said with about 3,500 employees working in every corner of the state on a wide variety of projects in addition to the Department of Motor Vehicles and State Patrol it would be impractical for her office to manage every contact. Instead, her office monitors media contacts after the fact through reports filed by employees who are interviewed, which she said allows her office to know what issues are hot. If everything funneled through one place I think wed be stymied, and we would not be effective in getting accurate, timely information to people who need it. said Patty Mayers, director of the office of public affairs. The folks in that area are more adept at answering those questions certainly than I would be. You have the power to keep local news strong for the coming months. Your financial support today keeps our reporters ready to meet the needs of our city. Thank you for investing in your community. Stories like these are only possible with your help! Start your day with LAist Sign up for How To LA, delivered weekday mornings. Subscribe Roughly 500 common dolphins were seen jumping out of the waters along Orange County in a video filmed on a sightseeing boat. The impressive and rare spectaclereferred to as a dolphin stampedewas spotted off the coast of Dana Point by a group on Captain Daves Dolphin and Whale Safari, and filmed by the tour company owner Dave Anderson, according to the O.C. Register. The stampede was seen roughly three miles off the shore. The leaping, known as porpoising, is the fastest way for the dolphins to travel, enabling them to reach speeds up to 17 knots, just shy of 20 mph. It was a good-sized pod. They were just swimming and all of a sudden took off, Anderson, who estimated the number around 500, told the Register. When they take off like this, its like someone fired a gun. They go from swimming along peacefully to like they are in a race to see how fast they can go. The last time Anderson saw a dolphin stampede this size was two years ago, while last year he saw a smaller one. "I would say stampedes are one of those most amazing things Ive seen in 20 years of whale watching," Anderson tells the L.A. Times. "Its completely exhilarating." Southern California is considered to have the highest concentration of dolphins per square mile of anywhere on the planet, including 450,000 common dolphins, according to the Register. Large mega-pods with up to 10,000 dolphins have been spotted off the coast of Dana Point in the past. Saturday, March 12, 2016 Alexis Rowe (Drake University School of Law) recently published an article entitled, Overseeing durable power of attorney in Iowa: discouraging abuse, honoring principals, 63 Drake L. Rev. 1201-1228 (2015). Provided below is an abstract of the article: Guardianships and conservatorships are an important and useful tool necessary for caring for disabled and incompetent adults. These tools allow others to handle the wards (the person being cared for) finances and health care decisions. However, they result in a significant loss of liberty and decisionmaking ability on the part of the ward and due to the procedural and judicial requirements of the process of establishing guardianship and conservatorship, are not easily accessible when needed. A useful alternative for adults who need assistance or want to engage in advance planning is the durable general power of attorney. These statutes exist in every state, including Iowa. However, their ease of use also results in ease of abuse. Additional protections for vulnerable principals who cannot advocate for themselves are necessary. Iowa has already established the legislative infrastructure for these additional protections to be effective. The state simply has to implement its already-passed legislation. The state recently took a significant step in the interest of protecting vulnerable adults when it passed the Iowa Uniform Power of Attorney Act in 2014. This Note looks to the future of advance directives in Iowa and provides additional suggestions for continued and improved protection of vulnerable adults in the state. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/trusts_estates_prof/2016/03/article-on-durable-power-of-attorney-in-iowa.html From VOA Learning English, this is Words and Their Stories. Each week we report on words and expressions commonly used in American English. We explain their meanings, their roots and how they are currently used. Today we talk a word that comes to English through the Irish. That word is boycott. Boycott can be used as both a noun and a verb. As a verb, boycott means to refuse to do something as a form of protest. People who boycott something are often looking for social, economic or political change. As a noun, the word boycott has a somewhat different meaning. People stop using goods or services during a boycott until changes are made. In fact, that is just how the word entered the English language. It began with a mans name. In the mid-1800s, a young man named Charles Boycott (1832-1897) served in the British army. After retiring, he worked as a land agent for the owner of a large country estate in Ireland. At that time, Ireland was under British rule. It was Boycotts job to collect money from tenant farmers who grew crops on the estate. The farmers demanded lower rents. Boycott refused. Not only did he refuse to lower their rents, he evicted some farmers, meaning he kicked them out of their homes. All these issues evictions, high rents and absentee landlords -- caused a dispute between Boycott and the local community. In particular, Boycott clashed with a man named Michael Davitt. In 1879, Davitt founded a group called the Land League. The league organized Irish resistance to absent and abusive landlords. It sought to help tenant farmers by securing fair rents and other rights of occupancy. Davitt suggested to the farmers that instead of attacking Captain Boycott, they should simply refuse to do business with him. This form of protest proved very effective. Boycotts workers and servants refused to carry out his orders. The crops in his fields went bad -- they rotted on the vine -- because nobody would harvest them. Reports even say some businesses would not take his money. The community turned their back on the Boycott family and they were forced to move. By the end of 1880, some British newspapers began using Boycotts name when reporting on a protest of unfair methods or actions. The usage quickly spread. The term boycott crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed in American newspapers. By the late 1880s, The New York Times was reporting on boycotts. The word was generally used to describe labor protests against businesses. These days, consumers are able to use their buying power to boycott businesses they consider unethical or abusive. Companies found to be mistreating their employees, breaking labor deals or polluting the environment can quickly find themselves in the middle of a boycott. The origin of the word boycott serves as a reminder: treat people fairly. Otherwise, your last name may become a word people use when they protest. And that brings us to the end of Words and Their Stories. If you did not like this subject, please do not boycott the program. Simply go to our website, learningenglish.voanews.com, and leave your suggestions in the Comments section. Im Anna Matteo. Have a great day! Anna Matteo wrote this story for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. The song heard at the end of the program is Sinead O'Connor singing, "This is a Rebel Song." Try using "boycott" in a sentence or let us know the word for boycott is your country. ________________________________________________________________ Words and Their Stories evict v. to put (a tenant) out by legal process : to force (someone) to leave a place absentee adj. a proprietor that lives away from his or her estate or business particular adj. used to indicate that one specific person or thing is being referred to and no others turned their back phrase to stop being involved with someone or something buying power phrase to acquire possession, ownership, or rights to the use or services of by payment especially of money : purchase unethical adj. not following accepted rules of behavior : not morally right and good Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former president of Brazil, was charged this week with the crime of money laundering. Officials say they have evidence the former president and his family benefited from an unlawful real estate deal. That deal affected thousands of Brazilian families. Lead prosecutor Cassio Conserino explained families lost their apartments and lost their chances at being homeowners. Instead of apartments going to families, the real estate was destined for the former president and his family. He added da Silva and his family were under investigation for a year. The prosecutors allege that da Silva and his family were given real estate. Da Silva denies any wrongdoing. He said he is not the owner of the apartment in the coastal city of Guaruja. Money laundering charges have also been brought against the former presidents wife and one of his sons. A conviction could result in a prison term of 13 years. The judge in charge of the case must decide whether to accept the charges and move forward with the case. Da Silva also faces other legal problems. There are charges and accusations that he accepted free work on his home in exchange for political favors and benefits. He governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010. He left office with a record-high popularity close to 80 percent. Im Mario Ritter. The Associated Press reported on this story. Jim Dresbach adapted the report for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story money laundering v. the concealment of the origins of illegally obtained money real estate - n. property such as buildings or land apartment - n. a number of rooms that are part of a building and used as a place to live destined - v. meant for allege - v. accuse; to state without proof conviction n. the act of proving that a person is guilty of a crime in a court of law favors n. kind or helpful acts that you do for someone U.S. military officials say they captured a key person in the Islamic States chemical weapons program in Iraq. The IS operative was captured by American special-operations forces. New gas attacks by the terror group were reported there Wednesday. The suspect was not identified. His detention was reported last week, but his connection to chemical weapons was not announced until now. The IS suspect was taken during raids in Iraq and Syria by a U.S. expeditionary targeting force. Their duty is to collect intelligence and identify high-level IS leaders. A Pentagon spokesman, Captain Jeff Davis, would not comment on recent operations. But he gave general information about the expeditionary targeting force. One of the goals, one of the missions we anticipate they will do is that they will capture a small number of ISIL leaders," he said, using another name for Islamic State. "The detention of these we anticipate to be very short term. It will be coordinated with Iraqi authorities. Officials in Iraq told VOA that IS fighters fired chemical weapons late Tuesday and early Wednesday. They said IS fired rockets loaded with mustard gas, also known as sulfur mustard, into a town north of Baghdad. Iraqi and Kurdish officials said dozens of civilians were injured by the attack on Taza Khurmatu. Most residents of the town are Shi'ite Muslim ethnic Turkmens. Soran Jalal, head of Taza Khurmatus civil defense office, said the rockets spread a garlicky smell, and caused nausea and vomiting." He told VOA that investigators confirmed the weapons carried mustard gas. A commander in Kirkuk, the Kurdish population center north of Turkmen town, estimated about 30 people required hospital treatment. Lieutenant Muhammad Qadir told VOA at least five of the wounded had facial burns caused by chemical agents. Separately, a police official in Kirkuk said it was determined the rockets were fired from territory controlled by the Islamic State group. U.S. officials are aware of the group's use of such weapons. They say IS has used chemical weapons more than once in both Iraq and Syria. This is a group that does not observe international laws or international norms. They have demonstrated they will stop at nothing to inflict death and destruction on innocent people, Pentagon spokesman Davis said. Sulfur mustard - its usually in a powdered form and its put into artillery shells, rockets. And when those blow up it creates a dust cloud that can primarily aggravate but in large doses can absolutely kill. U.S. officials say IS is still developing its chemical weapons program. So some reports about the terror groups use of chemical weapons on the battlefield is still largely about fear. The officials say IS fighters find it easier to make and use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or suicide bombers to injure and kill people. Im Anne Ball. VOAs Jeff Selden wrote this story, with additional information provided by VOAs Sharon Behn in Iraq and reporters Rikar Hussein and Dlchad Anwar. Anne Ball wrote the report for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, and join us on our Facebook page. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story expeditionary adj. relating to an expeditiona journey by a group of people for a specific purpose anticipate v. to think of something that might happen in the future garlicky adj. related to the garlic plant that has a strong taste and smell nausea n. the feeling in your stomach when you feel like you are going to vomit vomit v. to have the food and liquid in your stomach come out through your mouth when you are sick aggravate v. to make a problem or an injury more severe A plan for countries to cooperate in patrolling the South China Sea is welcomed by Vietnam. The plan would combine naval forces of Japan, Australia and India with the U.S. to patrol the waters. The proposal was made as China expands its territory and displays its military in the sea. Vietnam is one of a number of countries in Asia which has land and sea lane disputes with China. The Vietnamese welcome a group of navies patrolling the sea. Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., the U.S. Pacific Command chief, proposed America and its allies take part in navigation operations in the South China Sea. Well continue to do them (the navigation operations), Harris said Feb. 25 at a press conference. China has built islands in the South China Sea on top of reefs. The building and military development on them worries Vietnam. Social media user Vo Tan Hung of Vietnam told VOA that a coalition of naval power would make China reconsider its aggressive moves in the contested waters if the coalition is born. Japan suggested a similar coalition of navies in 2007. The idea was dropped when the Chinese protested. Japan has disputes with China in the East China Sea. Australia is considering the idea of the coalition. The positions of India and Japan are unclear, according to VOA. As tensions climb in the South China Sea, the Vietnamese increased military spending and have received support. The Vietnamese strengthened military ties with the Philippines. Two Japanese warships will dock in Vietnam next month, Vietnamese media reported. Tokyo and Hanoi agreed to a naval exercise last year. Im Jim Dresbach. Trung Nguyen wrote this story for VOA News. Jim Dresbach adapted the report for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story patrol v. to go around or through an area especially in order to make sure that it is safe reefs n. long lines of rocks or coral or a high area of sand near the surface of the water in the ocean contested v. to make something the subject of an argument warship n. a military ship that has many weapons and is used for fighting in wars dock v. to bring a ship or boat into a dock LEXINGTON,Neb. - An Elm Creek man faces a felony charge after being picked up this week for drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident in Lexington. According to the Lexington Police Department, Benjamin Chambers was arrested Thursday at 3:20 a.m. A department statement said Chambers ran onto the median near Highway 30 and Grant Street, colliding with two signs. He continued onto Washington where police made contact with him. Chambers blood alcohol content was .192. Police said Chambers license was confiscated on March 4 for a DUI arrest in Lancaster County. Court records indicate Chambers is charged in Dawson County with third offense drunken driving, a Class IIIA felony, and a misdemeanor county of leaving the scene of an accident. Bond was established at $10,000 and a preliminary hearing scheduled for March 17. Shirley A. Reynolds, 87, of Lexington died Thursday, March 10, 2016, at Plum Creek Healthcare Community in Lexington. Funeral Services will be held Tuesday, March 15, 2016, at 2:00 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in Lexington with the Rev. Dyton Owen officiating. Memorial P.E.O. Service will be performed by Chapter GR. Burial will be in the Robb Cemetery south of Lexington. Visitation will be held Monday, March 14, 2016, from 5-7 p.m. at the Reynolds-Love Funeral Chapel in Lexington. She was born April 28, 1928, at Benkelman to Vernard and Hazel (Walters) Gummere. Shirley grew up and attended school in Benkelman, where she graduated from Benkelman High School with the class of 1945. She taught school for a year prior to attending the University of Nebraska. While at the University she met Norman while roller skating. Shirley had taken a fall and Norman was there to pick her up. Shirley was united in marriage to Norman W. Reynolds on Feb. 29, 1948, in Benkelman. This was Leap Year, so Norman always figured he only had to buy an anniversary gift every four years, Shirley didnt think that was quite as funny. The couple made their home south of Lexington where they farmed, ranched, and raised horses. They raised horses for many years, achieving national recognition with a quarter horse stallion, Zippo Pine Bar. She loved attending horse shows with her children and grandchildren. An amazing story about Norman and Shirley is they never went anywhere without the other. It was a true love story, and they are together once again. Shirley was an active member of First United Methodist Church, Chapter GR, P.E.O., Order of the Eastern Star, leader for Jobs Daughters, several bridge groups, and the Investment Club. She enjoyed all Lexington activities involving youth. She could be seen at all the sporting events, musical events, etc. She cheered on every child from Lexington as if he or she was her own. The Nebraska Cornhuskers also held a special place in her heart, and as a younger woman she rarely missed a game. She enjoyed entertaining, spending time with family, especially the grandchildren, and loved cooking for the farm and ranching crews throughout the years. Shirley was a classy lady who enjoyed dressing nice, as her mother owned Hazels Town and Country for many years. She had a wonderful smile, and a kind nature, and was a friend to all. Shirley is survived by two sons; Larry (Jeanne) Reynolds, Rod (Susan) Reynolds of Lexington; son-in-law, John Snider of Lexington; seven grandchildren; Shannon (Dan) Keller, Blake (Stacy) Reynolds of Lexington, Carrie Beth Reynolds of Lincoln, Ryan Reynolds of Lexington, Regina (Craig) Howard of Lexington, Larry (Lisa) Snider of Smithfield and, Stacey Snider-Simon and her husband Brian of Tucson, Ariz.; as well as several great-grandchildren, extended family and many friends. Shirley was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Norman; daughter, Linda; and grandson, John. Memorials are suggested to the Norman and Shirley Reynolds Scholarship Fund, or the Lexington Community Foundation. Reynolds-Love Funeral Home in Lexington is assisting the family with arrangements. Please share online condolences with the family by visiting: reynoldslovefuneralhome.com. Ram Gopal Varma has done it again. The filmmaker known for his brash views took to Twitter to comment on the topic du jour, Vijay Mallya and his crores of unpaid debts. However, Varma had an unusual and offensive suggestion on how the banks might recover the money Mallya owed them. I think Vijay Mallya should dip into his personal bank and give one bikini beauty each to every bank he owes and square off all his debts, Varma tweeted, adding, The banks might not agree to Vijay Mallya's bikini proposal but the bankers might. I think Vijay Mallya should dip into his personal bank and give one bikini beauty each to every bank he owes and square off all his debts Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) March 11, 2016 Varma hinted at the money laundering allegations against Mallya (a consortium of 17 state-owned and private banks, led by State Bank of India have alleged that Mallya diverted some Rs 4000 crore of the money he borrowed from them to offshore tax havens like Mauritius and the Cayman Islands), and seemed to have his own theories about where and how that money was spent. If the money he borrowed is what created properties of his bikini clad girls (sic), wouldn't they be enough payback for the bankers? Just asking, he tweeted. If the money he borrowed is what created properties of his bikini clad girls,wouldn't they be enough payback for the bankers? Just asking Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) March 11, 2016 The filmmaker then went on to name names specifically those of Bollywood actresses Deepika Padukone, Nargis Fakhri, Katrina Kaif and Esha Gupta saying they could help in swaying the bankers. And am sure that the bikini beauties of Vijay Mallya were a huge part of the security for the banks and hence the bankers cant complain. I think Mallya's calendar girls Deepika Padukone, Nargis Faqri (sic), Esha Gupta, Katrina Kaif etc etc contributed to the bankers being swayed, one of Varmas tweets read. I think Mallya's calendar girls Deepika Padukone,Nargis Faqri,Esha Gupta,Katrina kaif etc etc contributed to the bankers being swayed Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) March 11, 2016 In a previous tweet, Varma had targeted the advertisement for the Swachh Bharat campaign, saying it was worse than Aag. New Delhi: Under fire over the flip-flop on Vijay Mallya's look-out circular (LOC), a red-faced CBI on Friday admitted that the notice seeking detention of the beleaguered businessman was issued to Bureau of Immigration because of an "inadvertent error" on its part. The CBI is facing flak after questions were raised how the liquor baron was able to go abroad unhindered on 2 March that has triggered a political slugfest with the BJP and the Congress trading charges. It had changed the nature of look-out notice against Mallya within one month of issuance from seeking his detention while leaving the country to that of merely providing information about his travel plans. A CBI spokesperson on Friday claimed Mallya was not found during searches on 10 October, 2015 after which the agency wrote to BoI, saying it needs to be issued to ensure "his availability for questioning" in connection with Rs 900 crore loan default case involving IDBI bank. She said that along with the covering letter, proforma for the circular was attached in which the column related to seeking the detention of an accused was wrongly "ticked" by a SP-level officer. The agency claimed detention under the look-out circular was only possible on the strength of a non-bailable warrant against an accused which was not the case with Mallya. It said on 23 November, CBI's Mumbai office was informed by BoI about the "imminent arrival" of Mallya over phone. It wanted to know what needs to be done to which the agency realised "corrective" measures were needed and told it not to detain him and asked to provide only his whereabouts and movements, the agency claimed. A day after the look out circular was changed from seeking "detention" to "only providing information about his movements", Mallya arrived in India and appeared for questioning before CBI on 9, 10 and 11 December, it said. After opening of look-out circular, Mallya travelled abroad at least three times before his departure on 2 March. According to CBI manual, "Request for Lookout Notices should be sent only after obtaining approval of the Joint Director concerned. The necessity for continuing the Lookout Notice should be reviewed every six months." CBI had registered a case against Mallya, Kingfisher Airlines, Chief Financial Officer of the airlines A Raghunathan, and unknown officials of IDBI Bank in its FIR alleging that Rs 900 crore IDBI loan was sanctioned in violation of norms regarding credit limits on the basis of complaint received from the bank. As questions centred around Mallya's departure, the man himself took to Twitter to explain that he did not flee from India and is not an absconder. He said in his posts that he would comply with domestic laws. The editor of Times Now needs to be in prison clothes and eat prison food for libel, deceit, slander and absolutely sensational lies. Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) March 10, 2016 I am an international businessman. I travel to and from India frequently. I did not flee from India and neither am I an absconder. Rubbish. Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) March 10, 2016 As an Indian MP I fully respect and will comply with the law of the land. Our judicial system is sound and respected. But no trial by media. Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) March 10, 2016 Let media bosses not forget help, favours,accommodation that I have provided over several years which are documented. Now lies to gain TRP ? Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) March 10, 2016 News reports that I must declare my assets. Does that mean that Banks did not know my assets or look at my Parliamentary disclosures ? Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) March 11, 2016 Once a media witch hunt starts it escalates into a raging fire where truth and facts are burnt to ashes. Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) March 11, 2016 India's financial crime-fighting agency, the Enforcement Directorate, has summoned Mallya for questioning on March 18, a senior agency official said later on Friday. A spokesman for Mallya's holding company, UB Group, declined to comment on the summons. The self-styled "King of Good Times", who built his business around Kingfisher beer and co-owns a Formula 1 racing team, explained to his five million Twitter followers that he travels to and from India frequently, saying he was the target of "a raging fire" media witch hunt. Mallya, also a member of parliament's upper house who was last seen in the chamber on 1 March, didn't disclose his current location in the social media posts. Two people familiar with his travel arrangements told Reuters Mallya flew first class to London on Jet Airways Flight 9W-122 the next day. Indian TV reporters said they had traced Mallya to the Hertfordshire village of Tewin, north of London, where he is known to locals. The businessman's luxury home, called Ladywalk, cost 11.5 million pounds ($16.4 million) when bought in July 2015, property records show. Commentators say the high-profile case is symptomatic of weak management at India's public sector banks - Mallya's lead creditor is State Bank of India. While a bill to modernise India's bankruptcy laws is now before parliament, the outdated legislation that is currently in force leads debt litigation to drag on for years. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told parliament on Thursday that the government had instructed banks to go "all out" in their efforts to recover the money owed by Kingfisher, pointing to cases of "wilful default bordering on fraud". Banks ramped up their campaign to retrieve funds after Mallya quit as chairman of spirits maker United Spirits, a unit of Diageo Plc, last month. As part of that settlement, Diageo will pay Mallya $75 million over five years. With inputs from agencies Mumbai: Mumbai Police has filed a charge sheet arraigning artist Chintan Upadhyay as the main accused in the killing of his estranged wife and installation artist Hema Upadhyay and her lawyer Haresh Bhambhani. The 2,000-page charge sheet was filed in Borivili metropolitan magistrate court against Chintan and four others Vidyadhar Rajbhar, Pradeep Rajbhar, Shivkumar Rajbhar and Vijay Rajbhar on Friday. While Chintan, Pradeep and Shivkumar are in custody, Vidyadhar is still absconding. "We have completed our investigation and filed the charge sheet before the Borivali metropolitan magistrate court. Once the case is committed to sessions court the charges will be framed and trial will start," said a senior police officer . He added that police will recommend appointment of Ujjwal Nikam as special public prosecutor in the case. The police has listed 30 witnesses in the case including absconding accused Vidyadhar's mother who has allegedly named Chintan in her statement. According to the police, Vidyadhar's mother has said that her son had earlier told her that Chintan had given him money to murder Hema. Apart from Vidyadhar's mother, police has also incorporated Hema's servant Lalit Mandal in the list of witnesses. Mandal in his statement given to the Kandivali police said that he was "surprised" to receive a call from Chintan after Hema went missing, as he rarely called him to enquire about her. Mandal stated that Chintan, who was living in Delhi, usually did not call him up to ask about Hema as their relationship was strained. Chintan left Mumbai on the night of 8 December, and after Hema went missing on 11 December, Mandal claimed to have received a call from Chintan asking him whether he was at home and whether Hema was present there, as if to check whether his plan had worked or not, said an official. It was then that Mandal told him about her disappearance. The police also has crucial technical evidence like CCTV footage in which the two victims can be seen leaving their car and walking towards Vidyadhar's workshop. PTI The difference between the way my bank treats me and the way Vijay Mallya got treated is a little bit different. Just a dinky little bit. Three weeks ago I asked for a loan of Rs 1 lakh. After he had stopped laughing and rolling on the floor and wiping tears of mirth, the bank manager asked me for collateral, a character certificate and he gave me three forms as complex as an Msc examination. He also sent me to search for a magistrate/gazetted officer and two people (with social status) to stand as surety. I was also asked to get a letter from my company showing how much there was in my PF and end of term benefits. He told me there would be a few more forms in the second round but first I would have to take a polygraph and see if I make the cut, rather like Ajinkay Rahane. "No", he said, "We cannot say for sure if you make the grade. We have to be careful, he said. Our bank is known for exercising caution." I want to know who stood guarantee for Vijay when the bank gave him Rs 1500 crores in a takeaway bag. And did he get himself a gazetted officer? How cautious and careful was that? My friendly next door banker warned me of dire consequences and the electronic voice threatened to have me shot because I was Rs 17000 into overdraft. Mr Mallya was only Rs 9000 crores in the red and they were so accommodating. No one hassled him. No one said, oops he has crossed 1000 crores, now 2000 crores, hey people hitting the red hot marker at 3000 crores and rising, should we send him a generic email at least. They took my phone number, office number, mobile number, email, fingerprints, photographs and ECG and this guy, they cannot find, they cannot even call him. They try any number they get Suhel Seth. If my credit card minimum is overdue by one day (Rs 8,200 which is less than the tip Vijay gave at the airport)an Interpol red alert goes out and the commissioner of police sends a Swat team to my house. A lady tells me sweetly that if I try to leave the city the goon squad will find me and I will have to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Vijay Mallya and his lady friend checked in at Jet Airways, went through Immigration, strolled around duty free, sat in the lounge and no one recognized him or asked him if he had his PAN card on him. No one said, excuse me, did you give back the 9000 crores. There must be at least 7000 bankers in these 17 banks and not one of them has an address where they send those first warning and second warning letters. And then the final it has gone to Collections and we are coming to get you so now you might as well jump off the ledge and end your sorry, miserable life. While I was sitting with my bank manager explaining why I was late in repayment and he had that Oh! Please, no sob story, okay' snotty expression, he made a phone call to the boss of a defaulter (thats what we are called if we dont pay on time, people like Vijay are called salt of the earth, valued customer or please Sir, take some more Cat One VIPs). If we dont answer the phone we are known as absconders. People like Vijay dont answer the phone, they just threaten to take TV anchors to court. Where we little people go wrong is we ask for teeny weeny loans. The trick is to take such a big loan that the banks are afraid to recall it because what if you tee off to your country house and frolic in the autumn mist and dont give it back. Like Vijay. None of which tees me off except that our bank managers never offer us tea and biscuits. Vijay probably gets a 5 star buffet and the bank picks up the bill. Tried to get him on the line again...and Suhel is still at it. Srinagar: In a serious challenge to the security forces involved in counter insurgency operations a new trend is catching up among the people of Kashmir who come to the rescue of militants by attacking forces with stones. Despite an advisory by the police, asking people to stay indoors at the time of an encounter between militants and security forces, people in south Kashmir have come out on to the streets and attacked forces which is seen as a diversionary tactic to help the besieged militants. More than a dozen of army soldiers, including an officer, were injured when a mob of around one thousand people threw stones at them in Ashmuqam village in Anantnag district, 69 kilometers south of Srinagar, on Tuesday, when army and police had launched a joint operation, following a tip-off about the presence of militants in the village. The cordon was well established, few guys got into operation area and then started pelting stones at soldiers. They tried to break the cordon, and we had to fire in air when our troops got injured, Col NN Joshi, defence ministrys spokesperson in Srinagar, told Firstpost. This forced army to come out publicly and declare that those who would violate the law would be dealt with appropriate action. Army says that people try to break the security cordon to help holed up militants to escape during encounters. This has happened from last three months, whenever there is cordon and search operation, people in villages try to come out and start stone pelting, although, we along with local police and CRPF, try to push them back. When a soldier is concentrated on encounter site and someone throws a stone from behind, how do you expect him to react? Joshi adds. On 9 March, after a heavy exchange of fire between militants and forces, police recovered bodies of two militants from an agriculture farm in Padgampora area in Pulwama district. Protests broke out minutes after the encounter and police had to use tear-smoke shells to disperse the protesters. Police sources said that a group of militants who were holding a meeting in Wandakhpora fields in Pulwama attacked forces who in a bid to encircle the militants had arrived in the area in private vehicles. After a brief exchange of fire, the militants managed to escape in a nearby Agriculture Farm at Padgampora. People tried to proceed towards the encounter site, however, police halted their movement and used tear-smoke shells to disperse them. It is nightmare for security forces who have been trying to minimize the collateral damage in valley recent years. If it is a threat to a soldier's life, we are left with no other option, but to fire, Joshi says. In February, an engineering student and young women were killed during protests after a Lashkar-e-Toiba militant was killed in a gunfight in Kakapora village of Pulwama, the protests paved the way for the escape of the slain militants two other associates. Police had to issue an advisory asking people to stay indoors and imposed Section 144 of CrPC around the areas, where encounters take place. In case any encounter starts anywhere, the people particularly the parents of young adults of nearby areas are requested not to allow their wards to move towards the encounter site. In case they are outside home they be recalled to home, the police advisory reads. The advisory was issued following the frequent incidents of violence during encounters as people attack security forces in a bid to give safe passage to trapped militants. The residents of nearby area within the radius of two kilometers should stay inside their homes and need not venture out as any stray bullet can hit and cause damage, the advisory reads. The residents are also requested not to come out of their houses or peep out of the window panes, it adds. Director General of Police (DGP), K Rajendra Kumar told Firstpost that since these encounter with militants happen in congested localities there is a possibility of people coming together and trying to disturb the operation. We are advising civilians to keep away, it may harm them. It is dangerous for them to go to the encounter sites. A stray bullet can hit any one and kill a civilian. We dont want that to happen, the Jammu and Kashpir Police chief said. Let us hope in future the advisory works, Kumar said. Vijay Mallya must have barely had any time to enjoy the promise of the Rs 515 crore from spirits giant Diageo, when the deal was stalled by the Debt Recovery Tribunal in Bengaluru. On March 7, the Enforcement Directorate lodged a money laundering case against Mallya; until it was resolved, the DRT said, Diageo should not to pay the severance package to former UB group chairman. Among those invested in the outcome of the case is a consortium of 17 state-owned and private banks, led by State Bank of India, which is hoping to recover dues amounting to over Rs 7000 crore. The banks have alleged that Mallya diverted at least Rs 4000 crore of the money he borrowed from them to tax havens like Mauritius and the Cayman Islands. While Mallya has since flown to the UK, from where he has been tweeting about his non-absconder status, another group of individuals former employees of his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines, numbering about 3000, according to this report in The Economic Times have been left with unpaid dues amounting to over Rs 300 crore. Kingfisher started in 2005, and had stalled by December 2012. In February 2014, even though he owed his employees salary arrears running into crores, Mallya spent around Rs 30 crore on his IPL team, the Royal Challengers. For some of those employees, the arrears ran into Rs 20-25 lakh each. Many of them have been following his deal with Diageo and the other developments this week closely, and several joined in penning an open letter to Mallya, alleging that he misled the government and his employees, and has blood on his hands. Yamini Joshi-Mukherjee was a senior engineer certifying aircrafts for Kingfisher in Delhi and eight months pregnant when things began to go downhill. While several other employees stopped working in protest, she continued her certifications until July 2013. She had received her last salary on July 2012, but stayed on because she was worried that no one would hire her at such an advanced stage of pregnancy. She finally resigned in August 2014. We faced so much grief, even from our fellow colleagues (who were protesting), recounted Yamini to Firstpost. I was abused, my car was damaged, people called up my husband asking him to make me stop working. But I continued, thinking things at Kingfisher would revive. Somewhere we also believed that since we were doing everything we could for the company, had stood by Kingfisher during the bad times, the company would stand by us too. Incidentally, Yamini had joined Air Deccan in 2004, and became a Kingfisher employee when the latter took over Deccan in 2008. Yamini says that many of her colleagues did not find work even a year after Kingfisher stopped operations. She herself took a 50 per cent pay cut to get her present job at Air Asia. I even considered getting a job at a call centre for a while, because I wasnt getting anything else, she said. When she finally got a job, it was in Bengaluru. Her husband had relocated to Mumbai from Delhi by then, and he still resides here with their little daughter. Im still suffering the burns Kingfisher has given me, and theres a lot of anger, she admitted. Another employee who has been following the news keenly is Jayanth, who was an executive at Kingfisher. He was with the airline from 2006-13, and on the companys rolls till it closed. I wasnt even one of those who was earning in lakhs; my salary was just Rs 40000. I was not paid for a year, and after that I didnt have a job for another year. For two-and-a-half years, my life was ruined. My entire family suffered, Jayanth told us. The same sentiment was voiced by another Kingfisher employee on condition of anonymity. I lost a lot of money due to non-payment of salary and miscellaneous dues. I left the airline in 2012, and my full and final clearance is still due. What I suffered will remain with me till the end of my life, the employee said. It wasnt just that they werent receiving their salaries from Kingfisher some employees feel that the airline set a bad example to others in the aviation industry. Moreover, many of the jobs required such a specialised skill-set, that it severely limited the opportunities these employees had access to. Rohan Balra, a pilot with Kingfisher who is based out of Mumbai, told us that he is trained to fly ATRs aircrafts that are smaller than the Airbus. So for pilots and cabin crew, our options were severely limited, as opposed to ground crew, who might have been able to get jobs in other industries, such as hospitality. Apart from Kingfisher, Jet Airways was the only other airline that was operating ATRs, and they had enough pilots. If you wanted to fly an Airbus, you would have had to invest another Rs 30 lakh in the training, Balra said. Balra, who had joined Kingfisher in 2007, estimates that the airline owes him something in the range of Rs 80-90 lakhs. Along with a few colleagues, Balra filed a case with the Labour Commissioner in Bengaluru; they attended between 20-25 hearings. In 2012, they even filed a case in court, but there have been no developments on that front. Knowing our system, if at all, it will be my daughter who gets the money thats due to me, he said. Some employees were luckier. Nidhi was training as a pilot with Kingfisher when it became evident that the airline was facing a slowdown. When that happened, they decided not to have too many pilots in the air. As a pilot, you need to log hours, and I wasnt logging any hours. So I decided to leave, Nidhi said. This was in 2009, and things were pretty slow even then. A lot of people were affected. The year was 1882 and a young man from Pune, Keshav Malhar Bhat, was on his way to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States of America. He studied there for a year, before returning home. It would be 20 years before the next Indian student would be enrolled at MIT. When they did, however, the floodgates opened. Over the course of a century (and a few decades more), several prominent Indians would study at the prestigious institute. Among the early pioneers, most would return and play an important part in making India a force to reckon with in the world of technology. Among these were Lalit Kanodia and FC Kohli (of TCS fame). Other MIT alumni like Anant Pandya (who spearheaded the Vaitarna Project; to double the water supply to the city of Mumbai), architect Charles Correa, Durga Bajpai (who designed the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai), and the heirs of prominent business families, like Adi Godrej and Aditya Birla, made their own contributions. The story of how these Indians went on to study at MIT is as interesting as what they managed to accomplish when they returned home (this, in an era when they got little or no recognition for their efforts, and certainly didnt have as much opportunity for financial reward). It is also the subject of Prof Ross Bassetts book, The Technological Indian. Bassett was in Mumbai this week, giving a talk at the Godrej India Culture Lab, and he describes how he got started on this quest to trace how MIT helped shape the technological Indian. It was about 13 years ago, when Indian software firms, Indian technologies and technocrats were making news that Bassett (who has always had a deep interest in India) began to wonder: How did a people of whom the Britishers said in the 19th century, The Hindoos are not a mechanical race change that perception so completely over the next century? Bassetts research (which took over 13 years) began with the IITs. In a visit to the library at MIT, however, he came upon the commencement announcements of students. It listed their names, the places where they came from and there were quite a few Indians among them. Barrett describes it as finding 1300 mini-biographies and asking himself, Would these tell us something about India? That Keshav Malhar Bhat had been at MIT all the way back in 1882 was an interesting finding, but Bassett wondered, Was it just an outlier? Or was there a back story that would provide some context to Bhats being at MIT a whole 20 years before his other countrymen got there? In the hope of answering that question, Bassett focused on Bhats hometown Pune, and found that a prominent resident of that city Bal Gangadhar Tilak might have had something to do with the students decision to go to MIT. Going through over 30 years worth of Tilaks newspapers the Mahratta in English, and the Kesari in Marathi (Bassett jokes that his task was made a little easier because these were weekly publications) the professor found that MIT had been praised highly within their pages. Nineteenth century globalisation characterised by steamships, thetelegraph, steam printing press etc brought news from all parts of the world to India, and the Mahratta was avidly covering the technological developments of the day (in addition to its criticisms of the British, of course). There was perhaps a sense that India was being left behind, Bassett believes, which might have reflected in an editorial in the Kesari on the need for an industrial school which would teach (Indian) students western skills. That editorial would end by asking permission to introduce readers to the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another three-part series in the Mahratta would also focus on MIT, and call it the best-conducted institute in the world. During World War II, as large numbers of American soldiers poured into India, an American library was set up in Mumbai. Among the titles here was a catalogue on MIT. Bassett says that the trained librarians deputed here reported that Indians had a lot of interest in learning about America, and about technical education in America. If Tilak was a fan of MIT, there was another national leader who also had close ties to those studying at the Institute. Bassett tells us that right from the late 1920s to the early 1940s, a cluster of students enrolled at MIT had connections to Gandhi. Among these were Trikamal Shah the registrar of the Gujarat Vidyapeeth and a Gandhian who went to MIT in 1926 to study electrical engineering. He was the leader of the Quit India strike at Tata Iron and Steel in 1942 and was imprisoned for 18 months, says Bassett. The other was Bal Kalekar, the son of Kaka Kalekar. Bal was raised at the Stayagraha Ashram, and walked alongside Gandhi during the Salt March. When he wanted to study at MIT, he wrote to GD Birla asking for his support Bassett reveals that Gandhi himself edited Bals letter. Life wasnt easy for these early students at MIT. For Trikamal Shah, his time at MIT was rather difficult. He was married and had a young child back in India. He was much older than the other students in his late 20s and an introvert. He didnt know much about American culture. He was a vegetarian and there were no Indian restaurants in Boston or Cambridge. He was also getting into debt by going to MIT. It was a challenging time, but he continued, says Bassett. Others, like Anant Pandya, had a somewhat smoother time. By the late 1930s there was a larger group of Indian students who had an active social life with one another, explains Bassett. When Pandya returned to India, he held a string of important positions: He was the first Indian principal of Bengal Engineering College in 1939, headed Hindustan Aircraft. Unfortunately, Pandya was killed in an automobile accident in 1951. In later years, the Indian graduates of MIT would go on to play a leading role in setting up IT companies that would do business on a global scale TCS, Datamatics, Patni, and Bassett believes, Infosys as well (in an indirect way, since it was set up by those who had previously worked at Patni). Tracing how that came to be, Bassett says, The modern computer was created to a large extent at MIT between 1945-70. Lalit Kanodia was among the students who were here during this time. In 1965, when Kanodia came back to India from MIT, he did a short stint with the Tatas and then convinced the company to let him start a computer operation. He hired two other MIT grads and set up TCS. Another MIT alumnus would take on Kanodias mantle at TCS, in 1969 FC Kohli. Kohli played a crucial role in developing the IT industry as one that could win business from the United States, says Bassett, before highlighting another prominent MIT graduates achievements: During the 1950s and 1960s, SL Kirloskar worked to develop a business that could sell products globally. He also helped to make Pune the center of the mechanical engineering and automotive industry. By 1977, TCS reputation had grown so strong that European computer professionals came down to India to train with the best. It was quite the morale booster for a country that had lived through the Emergency just two years ago. The tide, however, was turning. By 1965, America had changed its visa regulations, and under less discriminatory laws, more Indians were able to stay back in the US. They did setting off the phenomenon that has been called the brain drain. But from those years when the MIT-trained students were still returning home, Bassett has an interesting anecdote: A luncheon at which Jawaharlal Nehru had American ambassador John K. Galbraith as his guest. This was in 1961, when IIT-Kanpur had recently been set up, and Nehru was talking about the influence he hoped MIT would have in shaping it (Nehru had visited MIT back in 1949 with his sister. Incidentally, the Corridor of Infinity at IIT-Bombay is a replica of the one at MIT. And when GD Birla wanted to set up his Birla Institute of Technology and Science, he also had MIT in mind). Indira Gandhi was present as well at the luncheon, and mentioned that MIT was among the colleges her son Rajiv hoped to attend. Obviously, he never did. Speaking at a day-long consultation on Public Investment in Nutrition: Challenges and Opportunities in the New Fiscal Architecture in India UNICEF India Representative, Louis Georges Arsenault stated that presence of 29% stunted children in India is a silent emergency. The consultation was organised by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) in collaboration with UNICEF. Senior government officials, nutrition experts and public finance specialists participated in the day long deliberations to discuss some important issues pertaining to public spending for nutrition. Louis Georges Arsenault also added that strong political will with a sense of urgency is needed for tackling the problem. Alok Kumar, Nutrition Advisor, NITI Aayog pointed out that due to higher magnitude of untied resources flowing to states now, Centres leverage with states has gone down. Talking about the new National nutrition strategy being worked upon by NITI, he invited ideas to deal with challenges around measurement of data, convergence issues and a choice of having different state models or a uniform overarching one. Citing examples of states and countries where things are moving ahead with regard to nutrition, Amarjeet Sinha Additional Secretary, Ministry of Rural development said that development is the best contraceptive. He pointed out that if we follow evidence based analysis of what works and what does not, we can fight the problem better. Former bureaucrat S B Agnihotri reiterated the need to carry out evidence based analysis of what is driving under-nutrition and suggested that interventions focusing on different aspects of the problem of nutrition need to be mapped and linked for better results. Saba Mebrahtu, UNICEF discussed what needs to be done to reduce the problem of malnutrition. She said that with 47 million stunted children in the country, economic growth alone will not show significant improvement and a long term vision is required. There should be emphasis on identifying issues and challenges across a range of sectors which require greater attention in the policy framework. V Ramani, Former Director General, Maharashtra State Nutrition Mission highlighted that malnutrition has to be approached from a multi-sectoral perspective. Purnima Menon IFPRI stated that when a service is labelled universal it should be budgeted for accordingly. ICDS has been successful in reaching out to the targeted groups in some pockets, however, it was also felt that there are gaps in the scheme which need to be addressed on priority. Given the greater autonomy to the states, they now have an opportunity to redesign some of the existing schemes and also introduce new schemes that are more suited to local needs. The need now is to evolve more ways to engage with state capitals rather than focusing at the Centre. Priority to these sectors can be achieved only through greater advocacy with the state governments. Sudipto Mundle, member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission elucidated that the Commission did not increase total transfers as percentage of shareable pool, it only increased the untied component of this pool. He added, "We need to recognise that human development is equally important, along with infrastructure development. It is about training the community about child caring practices and building the capacity of community workers about child feeding processes. Its more about properly structuring nutrition programme, and can be done in campaign mode. While budgeting for nutrition, we also need to incorporate the demand side perspective. Large scale community ownership of schemes will help improve nutrition outcomes on the ground. Editor's note: When Firstpost decided to celebrate Women's Day, instead of serenading the famous and the well-known in India Inc, we turned the spotlight on women who run businesses with no wherewithal to do so except their fierce determination and a will to succeed. The stories are inspiring and need to be told, be it of Bohri women from Bhendi Bazaar who had to change homes after the area they were familiar with went in for redevelopment, and decided to turn micro entrepreneurs, to women in Kashmir who in spite of or because of the tough times that militancy posed to their lives, went on to run businesses that hinged solely on their expertise. Some like Haji Baji gave up a cushy job in Mumbai and turned homeward to Kashmir to set up a school in an area where there were no schools for two generations of people. From Assam come stories of women entrepreneurs who have come from poverty and gone on to win national awards, no less for their enterprises. Part 1: How a passion for creativity drove these micro entrepreneurs to chart their own path Part 2: 'Harbingers of hope' let's salute these five angels of change in Kashmir Part 3: These two women entrepreneurs from the North East may have missed out on a college education but not opportunities Patna: RJD president and former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad has not been invited to Saturday's railway function at Hajipur, to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and his party has taken exception to it. Modi will dedicate to the nation the rail portion of Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge during his visit to Bihar. "It was Lalu Prasad who added road to the railway bridge when he was the railway minister. But he has neither been invited at the railway function, nor his name mentioned in the advertisements," said Deputy Chief Minister and Prasad's son Tejaswi Yadav. Yadav said Prasad is also a former chief minister and deserves an invitation for the function. He said BJP wants to take credit but leave out Prasad who got the bridge completed. The programme is being held in Raghopur, a constituency Yadav represents, but he is still not been invited, he said. Yadav, who also holds road and building construction departments in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, said Prime Minister Modi should apologise to the people of Bihar for not keeping his word of giving a special package of Rs 1.25 lakh rore. Modi should apologise in the same manner in which he had announced the special package for Bihar, he said. "He should say he cannot give Rs 50,000 crore, Rs 60,000, Rs 70,000 crore, Rs 90,000 crore, Rs 1.25 lakh crore special package to Bihar," Yadav said. The PM's way of announcing special package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore and an additional Rs 40,000 crore of previous packages at Ara on the eve of Bihar Assembly polls was criticised by his rivals who said it was as if he was putting Bihar under the hammer. Modi will also attend the closing ceremony of centenary celebration of the Patna High Court for which the Chief Justice of India is invited, reports NewsX. The Patna High Court falls under Parliamentary constituency of Actor- politician Shatrughan Sinha. But he won't be able to attend the program due a tragedy in his family. with inputs from PTI This is my blog about my genealogy and especially about swedish and swedish -american genealogy especially my podcast Anna-Karins Genealogical Podcast http://annakarin.libsyn.com Over a fortnight ago, four former Ambassadors of India to Afghanistan gathered in New Delhi before an invited audience to discuss the future of that country. These were some of the finest Indian diplomats we have had in recent years -- Satinder K Lambah, Vivek Katju, Rakesh Sood and our envoy until December last year and a serving diplomat, Amar Sinha. But, their prognosis of the future for Afghanistan was far from encouraging. They all argued that the security situation would deteriorate further and it would take two-three years for conditions to stabilize. Frankly, they all shared pessimistic security outlook for Afghanistan and separately emphasised that they could not speculate where the war-torn country was headed. Moreover, the uneasy relationship between President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah could soon reaching a breaking point. According to UN the number of casualties, dead and injured among civilians was the highest in 2015. Reports by security experts and international media have painted an alarming state of ground situation not only in Southern Afghanistan (traditional stronghold) of Taliban but, even Northern provinces like Badakshan, bordering Central Asia. Daily reports point to attacks in Nagrahar, Helmand, Kandahar and Kunduz provinces apart from Kabul getting increasingly targetted. In this background India has finished the building of Parliament in Kabul which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January and the Salma Dam project is nearing completion. In the coming weeks another milestone would be reached when $300 million Salma Dam project is completed. Damaged during Taliban rule the renamed Afghan-India Friendship Dam is expected to be produce 42 MW of electricity and water nearly 80,000 hectares of farmland. It was reported in the local press that when the reservoirs earth filling process was on, grateful residents of villages walked to Indian consulate and stood outside singing Bollywood numbers from Amitabh Bachchan old movies. None can deny that Afghan people view India and the people with love and affection that are not shared with any other country. Indias commitment to a politically stable and economically strong Afghanistan has remained steadfast and is evident from the previously pledged $2 billion in relief and construction activities of the country. With two major projects coming to a close the government of India has announced the 3rd phase of 92 small development projects totalling $16-17 million. But all planned funding or investment would necessitate a certain amount of political stability. That means New Delhis economic co-operation would slow down if not halt. After Modis Kabul visit and a trip to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs Lahore residence, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called for co-operation from Pakistan to make Afghanistan an economic hub. In Rawalpindi, the Generals have no intention to accommodate New Delhi. Afghanistan is too important for them to allow India any space or say in that countrys future. The Pakistan Afghanistan Trade and Transit Agreement is highly unlikely to be expanded to include India. What options does India have given these realities? Indias former envoys in Kabul offered no new option from what is already known publicly. A few months ago Firstpost had looked at different options that could look at. Indias conservative diplomats would not like to do anything that is dramatically different. But, if India wants to pursue a muscular foreign policy under Prime Minister Modi it must also look for out of the box options. With Iran nuclear agreement under implementation and the US relaxing sanctions on Tehran, the Modi government must put all its energies in getting the Chabahar port project operational. With access through Pakistan unlikely to materialise it is the Iranian route that India needs to seriously work on. For months Iran had sought India to expedite its decision making process to start investing in Chabahar Port in Sistan-Balochistan border that hold the potential for India to bypass Pakistan and reach Afghanistan. Growing restlessness with Indian bureaucracy led Iran to woo China for investment to get New Delhi to get serious about Chabahar. Pressure from Tehran seemed to have worked and now Parliament has been informed that negotiations on an Agreement on India-Iran-Afghanistan Trilateral Transit Corridor have made progress and the next meeting of experts to finalise the clauses of this agreement will be held in India shortly. A few weeks ago the Union cabinet extended a $150 million credit line to Iran to help develop Chabahar port. Serious efforts must be made to make Chabahar take off. At the same time India needs to deliberate on how it could provide succour to Pakistan-dependent Afghan exporters by making access to Indian market possible for fruit and dry fruit growers. Weekly chartered freight flights to ferry fruits and dry fruits to Indian cities like Delhi and Mumbai would provide better price and lower their dependence on Pakistan. Similar assistance that go beyond traditional dam and road projects need to be studied and options looked at, including sale of small weapons and infantry guns as requested by Kabul government for long. The political leadership needs to be less conservative and must explore options that would reflect Indias deep interest in Afghanistans future and seriousness to engage at more substantial level. The US foreign policy establishment and some experts have for long tried to impress upon New Delhi since the tenure of Manmohan Singh that regional power or regional superpower status entails taking difficult foreign policy decisions at times. The Modi government must decide and move out of New Delhis comfort zone. RIO DE JANEIRO Criminal charges and a request by prosecutors to jail Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are putting the former Brazilian president and leftist icon back in a role he has long relished: that of the martyr. The 70-year-old former metalworker, still a hero to blue-collar Brazilians because of an economic boom that created millions of jobs during his two terms as president, has known since his days as a union leader how to cast himself as the victim of an oppressive elite, galvanizing the working class behind him. Last week, after federal police took him into custody briefly for questions about a far-reaching graft probe around Brazil's state-run oil company, Lula said he "felt like a prisoner" and urged leftist organizations, from landless peasants to labour unions, to rally. "Summon me," he said, asking them to show support. "I am going to travel this country." For the beleaguered government of President Dilma Rousseff, Lula's successor and protege, any traction Lula gets could provide relief at a time when it is crippled by impeachment proceedings, an economy that shrunk by 3.8 percent last year and a corruption scandal that is drawing ever closer to her inner circle. "This is a paralysed government that needs any help it can get," says Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Insper, a Sao Paulo business school. "Even if Lula himself has lost some support, he still knows how to mobilize the party militants. The government will hitch a ride on that." Of course, Lula's circumstances are far different from four decades ago, when he mobilized hundreds of thousands of workers against a military dictatorship and played a role in restoring democracy to Latin America's biggest country. Federal prosecutors say they believe Lula accepted illicit payments and favours connected to the giant kickback scandal around Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4.SA), the oil company. In a separate, but related investigation, state prosecutors in Sao Paulo, Brazil's industrial capital and the cradle of Lula's Workers' Party, have charged him with crimes including fraud and money laundering. Lula has denied any wrongdoing. 'AN ACT OF INJUSTICE' The widening scandal, and the allegations against him, have eroded the popularity of Brazil's first working-class president, who enjoyed approval ratings of nearly 90 percent when he left office at the end of 2010. In a recent Datafolha poll simulating the presidential election in 2018, when Lula could attempt to return as the Workers' Party candidate, he had 20 percent of the vote, slightly less than the centrist candidate who heads the chief opposition party. On Thursday, the state prosecutors asked a judge to jail Lula, pending further legal proceedings. The move was criticized as slipshod by many jurists, who argue that a world-famous leader poses virtually no flight risk. Rousseff, in comments to reporters on Friday, said the request "exceeds the limits of good sense, is an act of injustice." Even Workers' Party rivals said it could provide ammunition for those who characterize the ongoing investigations as a witch hunt. Indeed, in a statement late Thursday, Lula's defence cast him as a historic underdog still fighting oppression. The request is an effort "to gag a political leader, to impede his expression of thought and even the exercise of his rights," wrote Cristiano Zanin Martins, one of Lula's attorneys. "Only in the dictatorship, when all rights of the citizen were suspended, were opinions and the exercise of rights reason to deprive liberty." Rousseff on Friday said she would be proud to have Lula in her government, referring to the possibility that the government could shield Lula by appointing him to her cabinet. Under Brazilian law, that would require any legal charges against him to go before the Supreme Court. People familiar with the possibility, however, say that Lula is unlikely to accept such an offer, because doing so could be interpreted as an admission of guilt. More likely, they say, Lula will continue efforts to rally what's left of his political base. On Sunday, opposition groups have scheduled the latest in a series of demonstrations to express support for Rousseff's ouster. In addition to ongoing impeachment proceedings, launched last year over accounting tricks in the government budget, Rousseff faces a court decision over the alleged use of kickbacks to finance her 2014 re-election campaign. Rousseff denies both sets of accusations. So far, the demonstrations have been lacklustre, composed mostly of upper and middle-class whites who traditionally oppose the Workers' Party. But the growing tension has led some government leaders to ask leftist groups to refrain from inciting clashes of the sort that erupted between supporters and opponents outside Lula's home and the Sao Paulo airport where he was questioned last week. "You have a government that may not conclude its term and the prospect of Lula in jail," says Alberto Almeida, a consultant at the Instituto Analise, a political and social analysis firm in Sao Paulo. "They (the Workers' Party) are at the point where the only defence is to attack." (Reporting by Paulo Prada; Editing by Mary Milliken) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Washington: US President Barack Obama has mocked the Republican leadership for being "shocked" over the campaign narrative of its front runner Donald Trump as he blamed it for creating the environment that led to the controversial leader's rise. "We've got a debate inside the other party that is fantasy and schoolyard taunts and selling stuff like it's the Home Shopping Network," Obama said during a public meeting in Austin, Texas referring to the election campaign and rhetoric of the Republican presidential candidates. "Then you've got the Republican establishment they're very exercised. We're shocked that somebody would be saying these things. We're shocked that somebody is fanning anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-Muslim sentiment. "We're shocked! We're shocked that somebody could be loose with the facts. Or distort someone's record shocked!" Obama said, referring to the campaign narrative of Trump, amidst laughter and applause from the audience. "How can you be shocked?" asked Obama. "This is the guy, remember, who was sure that I was born in Kenya. Who just wouldn't let it go," he said amidst laughter. "All this same Republican establishment, they weren't saying nothing. As long as it was directed at me, they were fine with it. They thought it was a hoot. Wanted to get his endorsement. And then now, suddenly, we're shocked that there's gambling going on in this establishment," Obama said amidst another round of a laughter and applause. "I want to be very clear. There are thoughtful conservatives good people in the Republican Party, good people who are Republican voters who care about poverty and they care about climate, and don't resort to insults, and are troubled by what's happening inside their own party," he said. "But they've got to acknowledge why this happened because some of them have been writing that, well, the reason our party is going crazy is because of Obama. Which is a pretty novel idea. The notion is Obama drove us crazy. "Now, the truth is, what they really mean is their reaction to me was crazy and now it has gotten out of hand. But that's different. I didn't cause the reaction. The reaction is something that they have to take responsibility for and then figure out how do we make an adjustment." Obama said the country is on the right path and not the other way round as being claimed by the Republican presidential candidates as he listed out some of achievements including economic recovery and killing of Osama bin Laden. "I mean, imagine what Trump would say if he actually had a record like this. Instead of selling steaks. You've got all these candidates on the other side tripping all over themselves to talk down the economy when it is the bright spot in the world economy," he said. "You've got folks talking about how weak America is when we're the most powerful nation on Earth. You've got these folks saying immigration is our biggest crisis when illegal immigration is lower than it's been in 40 years. Folks who say climate change isn't real when last year was the warmest year on record. Bless their hearts, it's just a different reality that they're talking about," he said. PTI By Marya Shakil What do you say to an 18 year old who acknowledges the qualities of her opponent with grace and humility? She says her friend in the Opposition is "committed, hardworking, a kind person, a good student and is a role model to all girls of her school including me." Her choice of words leaves one mildly bewildered. Her ambitions and desires are ordinary but there is everything extraordinary in her approach towards them. Dont young adults her age have a tendency to overestimate their abilities and underestimate others; has this generation been stereotyped? I jog my memory back to reality I was not in in the company of an ordinary teenager, this one is the worlds youngest Nobel Laureate. Malala Yousafzai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2014 wants to be the head girl of her school in Birmingham and that's her immediate goal. She admits with a hint of a smile that it would be embarrassing if she loses and hence, is working with a quiet resolve to win her first electoral battle when the school's students and teachers vote to elect the student leader of their school. She explains the various stages of the selection process for her schools top job in the first stage, the candidate writes a letter outlining her suitability for the position and their ideas about developing their role. When I met Malala and her family on a cold winter afternoon in Birmingham, her mother and father were consumed with the thought of what the content of her letter should be. Its exhaustive enough for this teen to burn the mid-night oil as she juggles between her public role as the Nobel laureate and a school student. Malala's home reflects Pashto traditions, with songs of Sardar Ali Takkar, known for singing revolutionary poems of Ghani Khan, playing in the background 'aay zama watana da laal on khazaney zama', lyrics indicating a longing for home in Pakistan. Exuding confidence, Malala said she worked as a "maths mentor for a class 8 student" and that "this engagement with juniors shows her commitment towards her school." While building a case for her candidature she cautiously rests her arguments on "her creative ideas, communication skills, commitment and passion." The sense of purpose that makes her stand out is that "knew the importance of building of leadership skills right from the beginning, thus, took responsibilities such as the role of charity representative and form representative several times since she was in class 9." For a girl who was stopped and shot at for attending a school in Pakistan to now competing with those her age in a new country, Malala is conscious of her strengths and weaknesses. She says she is fortunate to get an education while many her age are still deprived of it. After a SWOT analysis of where she stands versus her fellow candidate, she adds that her competitor is a theatre artist who recently played the lead role of Eponine Thenardier from Les Miserables in a school play and charmed everyone. She believes that while acting and performance aren't her strengths, she is a debater proven track record of representing her school on several inter-school competitions and has been relentlessly working on her communication skills. "It pays to know the enemy not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend," said Margaret Thatcher, for decades that quote seemed to be an example of leaving a window of engagement open with the enemy in a war, as the future is always full of surprises. But for Malala who didnt wish to disclose the name of her opponent as she feels its against propriety in a battle, she wasnt really an enemy. Her letter concludes and her best friend arrives. Malala is going to attend a concert in which her challenger is performing. I leave Birmingham convinced that my young acquaintances work has already caught an attention of the entire world and this election should pretty much be a cake walk for her. Two weeks later, I spoke to her family to get an update on Malalas journey. Her father gladly said that she has been selected for the final round along with four other girls including the one she thought was a strong candidate and will now be delivering a speech in front of the entire school. We were told that a long list of applicants was drawn on the basis of the letters to the principal and candidates had to undergo two rigorous rounds of interviews before the final selection to this stage. Her speech was reminiscent of her unbroken bond with her home in Swat Valley in Pakistan. The stories of her childhood that have shaped her present. Conscious that her home is still 3692 miles away in Pakistan, she reminds her schoolmates that she has been in the UK for just 3 years and thanks to her school, she is able to pursue her dream of getting an education. Her wit reflecting her grit, when she told me "Despite being one of the shortest girls, even with a bit high heels and the majority of year 7s being taller than me, I believe I have the qualities, ideas and most importantly the passion and ambition a head girl needs, as they say, good things come in small packages." The school voted. Malala didnt become the head girl. She was elected as the Deputy leader of her school. "It was a close contest," she told me later but in her graceful acceptance as the second in command, she emerged a victor. With no bitterness, Malala communicated to the newly elected head-girl that she would work with her in complete sync and they would form a great team. She has already put forth an idea of a "mentorship programme" called "student squads" in which girls in class 6 would create small subject groups such as history squad etc to teach revision and exam techniques to girls in lower years. Today as she invariably prepares for the next stages in her life, Malala Yousafzai the young teenager standing up to atrocities of Taliban, continues to provethat she is tough and there are lessons to be learnt from every lost battle. Her next stop could be Oxford University where she is applying to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics where Benazir Bhutto her Countrys first woman Prime Minister was the president of the Oxford Union. Is it a telltale sign? I wonder. UNITED NATIONS The United States will raise during U.N. Security Council consultations next week the issue of Iran's recent ballistic missile launches and is urging countries to cooperate on undermining Tehran's missile programme, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Friday. "We will raise these dangerous launches directly at Council consultations, which we have called for, on Monday," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said in a statement. "These launches underscore the need to work with partners around the world to slow and degrade Iran's missile programme." A series of ballistic missile tests this week conducted by Iran's Revolutionary Guard units drew international concern. The United States, France and other countries said that if confirmed, the new launches of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles would violate U.N. Security Council resolution 2231. Power said Iran's missile launches were "provocative and destabilising." "Moreover, Iranian military leaders have reportedly claimed these missiles are designed to be a direct threat to Israel," she said. "We condemn such threats against another U.N. member state and one of our closest allies." Power added that Washington would continue to demand "full implementation of resolution 2231, which expressly prohibits third-party support to Iran's ballistic missile programme, as we also consider our appropriate national response." The closed-door consultations on Iran will take place Monday morning. The 15-nation Security Council is scheduled to hold separate consultations on Syria at 10 a.m. ET (1500 GMT). The United States has said Iran's missile tests do not violate the terms of an historic nuclear deal between Tehran and six major powers, which resolution 2231, adopted in July 2015, endorsed. The U.N. missile restrictions and an arms embargo on Iran are not technically part of the nuclear agreement. Council diplomats say they will first await confirmation from national intelligence agencies about whether the missiles Iran has fired were nuclear-capable. They also say that Russia and China, which had opposed continuing U.N. restrictions on Iran's missile programme, would likely block council action. Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the tests were not in violation of the nuclear agreement, which led to lifting of sanctions in January. Western diplomats say resolution 2231, which "calls upon" Iran to refrain from certain ballistic missile activity, offers no green light for nuclear-capable missile launches by Tehran and is therefore a clear ban. However, they acknowledge that Russia, China and Iran likely interpret that language as an appeal to Iran to voluntarily refrain from missile activity. Tehran has also said that none of its missiles are designed to carry nuclear weapons. While no new U.N. sanctions may be imminent, Western diplomats say that the United States and some of its allies could take additional punitive action in the form of unilateral national sanctions against Iran over the latest missile launches, something Washington has done previously. When U.N. sanctions on Iran were lifted in January, the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee was shut down. But council diplomats said they expect the former chair of that now-defunct committee, Spain, will take on the task of overseeing the monitoring of Tehran's compliance with resolution 2231. (Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Leslie Adler) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Beirut: The UN envoy for Syria called Friday for elections in the war-ravaged country in 18 months, as the opposition announced it will attend fresh peace talks next week. But in a worrying development ahead of the negotiations, government raids were reported to have killed five civilians in Syria's second city, Aleppo, despite a ceasefire. The truce has prompted a nearly two-week lull in fighting between the Russian-backed regime and non-jihadist rebels since coming into force on 27 February. World powers are counting on the ceasefire to hold for a new round of indirect negotiations between the opposition and the government due to start on 14 March in Geneva. The Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee, the main Syrian opposition grouping, agreed today to attend the UN-backed talks. The HNC said in a statement that its delegation would focus on creating a "transitional governance body with full executive powers". It insisted that President Bashar al-Assad "will have no place" in a future government. A plan agreed by world powers last year called for six months of negotiations followed by a transitional government, a new constitution and elections within 18 months. Assad's regime announced last month that it would hold parliamentary elections on 13 April instead, drawing criticism. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has said "substantive" talks will begin on Monday in Geneva and last no longer than 10 days. The first day of negotiations would start the countdown to both presidential and parliamentary elections in Syria under UN observation, he said. "New elections... should be held 18 months from the start of talks, that is from 14 March," de Mistura told Russia's RIA Novosti state news agency today, in comments translated into Russian. That would mean elections around mid-September 2017. In addition to planning the polls, the focus of the Geneva negotiations will be on the formation of "an inclusive new government" and a new constitution, according to de Mistura. "I hope that during the first stage of talks, we reach progress at least on the first question (of the new government), it doesn't matter whether this is on paper," he was quoted as saying. AFP Balinese people traditionally only used organic materials leaving no waste behind. But today paradise is lost, the tourists grumble and the resort island is swamped with rubbish. Warungs (small restaurants) serve soft drink in plastic bags to save people the hassle of returning empty bottles. Even canang sari - the daily offerings Balinese Hindus place in temples or small shrines in houses to thank the Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa - often contain plastic wrapped lollies. Much of the rubbish in Bali is not collected. Some plastic is burnt, acrid fumes choking sweaty afternoons. Some is simply dumped in rivers. "In Bali we generate 680 cubic metres of plastic a day. That's about a 14-storey building," Isabel says in the TED talk. "And when it comes to plastic bags less than five percent get recycled." It's a dream that has sustained the sisters - who founded the campaign Bye Bye Plastic Bags - for three years now. It has fuelled their quest for a million signatures, made them persevere with beach clean-ups and school presentations and even led to a modified food strike. Their remarkable journey has taken them to London, where they were invited to give a TED talk last September, and to the office of Bali governor Made Mangku Pastika, whom they now count as a friend. The sisters have inspired Bye Bye Plastic Bag campaigns all over the world. But perhaps most importantly, as Melati says in the TED talk, "along the way, we have learned kids can do things. We can make things happen". Melati and Isabel dream of a day plastic bags will be contraband in Bali. "We want people to arrive on the Island of Gods and there will be no plastic bags," Melati says. "Everyone who enters our home would know no plastic bags could be taken in or out." Balinese sisters Melati and Isabel Wijsen. Credit:Made Nambi Three years ago Melati and Isabel, then aged 10 and 12, were inspired by a class on people such as Mahatma Gandhi and Princess Di at the Green School in Bali. "We sat on the couch brainstorming - 'What can we do as kids on the island of Bali?" They knew rubbish was a big problem in Bali but it seemed insurmountable. And then they learned Rwanda banned polyethylene bags in 2008. "If one of the poorest countries does that, Bali should get on its game," Melati says. "We don't have to wait until we are older to make a difference." Melati and Isabel formed Bye Bye Plastic Bags with their best friends. They gave talks at schools across Bali and held beach clean-up days. But it was a challenge for them to get the attention of the government. "Being kids, we thought if we get one million signatures, they cannot ignore us, they will have no choice," Melati says. But, as Isabel points out drolly in the TED talk: "Who would have guessed one million signatures is, like, a thousand times a thousand?" At first it was fun. They would go to shopping malls and events and the signatures mounted fast. But on other days they slowed to a trickle. "It was tough," says Melati and Isabel's mother, Elvira. "We calculated it would take one person seven years. They got stuck a little bit. We needed to have an idea out of the box." That idea was the Ngurah Rai International Airport. Someone mentioned the airport handles 16 million arrivals and departures a year. Tourists were the perfect target for the petition as it's hard to escape the plastic fouling once picturesque rice fields and forests when holidaying in Bali. Remarkably, the commercial manager of the airport allowed the children to collect signatures at the departure gates behind customs - an area normally inaccessible for those without boarding passports. "He said: 'I can't believe I'm letting you do this'," Melati recalls. The access has since been revoked amid tightened airport security. But they were fun days, that helped swell the number of signatures on the petition to 100,000. Last year a study of 192 countries led by the University of Georgia found Indonesia was the second largest source of plastic rubbish in the ocean after China. Indonesians living within 50 kilometres of the coast generated 3.22 million tonnes of mismanaged plastic waste in 2010 - 10 per cent of the world total. Twenty kilograms of plastic was found in the stomach of a giraffe at Surabaya Zoo, who died in 2012 after losing his appetite. On February 21 - National Waste Awareness Day - Indonesian retailers in some cities began charging at least 200 Rupiah (two cents) for plastic bags. Although 23 cities were slated to participate in the pilot including Jakarta and Denpasar, all but seven said they were not ready. As is often the case in Indonesia, it was a case of two steps forward one step backwards. Just days after the policy was implemented, Jakarta withdrew from the pilot. Jakarta governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja said ordering retailers to use biodegradable plastic bags was sufficient to reduce waste. Although some argue the equivalent of two cents is insufficient, Melati believes even a small levy will lead to behavioural change. Rights groups and organized crime experts are expressing rising alarm at the prospect of Syrian and Iraqi war refugees many of them women and children heading into Albania from Greece, now that the main Balkans route into Europe has been blocked by a series of border closures. The move would lead refugees to use people smugglers linked to the Albanian mafia, an extremely violent organized crime network. In the 1990s, in the aftermath of the long-running Balkans war, Europe's police forces considered the Albanian mafia to be a dominant player in the sex trafficking of women on the continent. Now that Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia have all effectively shut their borders to asylum-seekers, one alternate route for refugees already in Greece and newcomers crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey is to travel overland to Albania and then cross the Adriatic Sea to Italy. That route known as the "Adriatic Connection" has for years been plied by the Albanian mafia for drug-running and weapons trafficking, although it was used for people smuggling in the 1990s. An alternate route to the European Union for refugees in Turkey is through Bulgaria into Greece and then across the Adriatic. Such a route also would require help from people smugglers. "Up until now, there were no indications that there was a flow of migrants through the Adriatic; but it stands to reason that, with the closure of the Balkan route, another route may open," Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano warned Thursday. Aid agencies, fences Save the Children and other non-governmental organizations are discussing setting up teams in Albania. Women and children make up more than half of the refugees currently in Greece, as well as those arriving on smugglers' boats from Turkey, according to U.N. agencies. "From what we are hearing, refugees at Idomeni and elsewhere in Greece are talking about going through Albania although they do realize that is a much riskier route, Iman Aoun of Save the Children said in an interview with VOA. In addition to organized crime, what adds to the danger is that there are few relief agencies there to assist the refugees with shelter, food or services." Bulgarian officials, fearing an influx of tens of thousands of refugees trapped in Greece, say they are planning to build a fence along part of their border, while Albania has requested Italian military and police assistance to beef up its frontier security. Mafia groups During the Balkans war in the 1990s, Albanian mafia groups forced hundreds of vulnerable women into prostitution, trafficking them to the prosperous countries of northern Europe and seizing control of brothels in such cities as London and Milan. Matteo Albertini, an expert on the Italian and Albanian mafias who coined the term Adriatic Connection, agrees with the concerns of rights groups. There are, indeed, risks for abuse, he said, adding that a lot depends on whether there will be further border closures. "That could make the situation worse," he said, and "the arrival of migrants in Albania could easily revive this smuggling path" across the Adriatic. Since the 1990s, the Adriatic Connection has been used mainly for drug smuggling and gun running rather than people smuggling, says Albertini, who writes for www.Balkansanalysis.com and lectures at the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. Missing minors The rising prospect of refugee women and children entering Albania comes just weeks after Europe's police agency announced that an estimated 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children have disappeared in the past two years on the continent. Europol chief of staff Brian Donald warned that organized crime rings and sex traffickers were likely behind many of the disappearances. "We just do not know where they are, what they are doing or whom they are with," he said. About half of the missing are thought to have disappeared after registering with authorities in various member states; the rest, prior to registering. In May 2015, Italy's Foreign Ministry admitted that 4,840 unaccompanied minors, who had been rescued by the Italian coast guard crossing from Libya, had simply vanished. The head of the central division of the Libyan coast guard, Colonel Rida Benissa, told VOA in an interview last year that he suspected the Italian mafia which has close ties to Albanian mobsters and the smugglers had a joint hand in child trafficking. However, Save the Children's Aoun says that the estimates of missing children may be too high. "Sometimes refugees will register in one country but not in another when they move through it, and so it looks like they have disappeared when they haven't really, he explained. The system just records them as missing. And registration policy is not always consistent between countries, and so there are a lot of discrepancies." Even so, Aoun worries about penniless, vulnerable refugee women and children trudging through Europe. "Two weeks ago, we had five Iraqi siblings who turned up in Serbia," he said. "The oldest claimed he was 18, but there are suspicions he was much younger. And the others were all young, the youngest 10 years old. And they tramped through forests for days, and at one point were held at gunpoint by the smuggling networks. So, all these border restrictions are placing kids and women at even more risk." Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is blaming Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and his supporters for what he says was a planned disruption that forced him to cancel a Chicago rally Friday night. Fights broke out among several Trump supporters and opponents before police cleared the crowd. Many of the protesters chanted "Bernie, Bernie" and waved Sanders signs. Police made five arrests. Campaigning Saturday in Cleveland, Ohio, Trump mocked the socialist senator from Vermont as "our communist friend." Blaming Sanders "Where do these people come from?" Trump asked. "They're Bernie's crowd. Hey, Bernie. Get your people in line, Bernie." Trump complained that the Chicago demonstration was "professionally done" and accused protesters of keeping him from exercising his First Amendment right to free speech. Sanders issued a statement Saturday denying his campaign organized the protests and blaming Trump's harsh rhetoric for provoking attacks by Trump supporters. "What causes the violence at Trump's rally is a candidate that has promoted hatred and division against Latinos, Muslims, women and people with disabilities and his birther attacks against the legitimacy of President Obama," the Vermont senator said. Before declaring his candidacy, Trump insisted Barack Obama was not born in the United States, had faked his birth certificate, and therefore was unqualified to be president. Calls rhetoric 'dangerous' Sanders' rival in the race for the Democratic nod, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, called Trump's campaign rhetoric "dangerous" and appealed to voters Saturday to reject "this tide of bullying and bigotry and blustering." "If you play with matches, you're going to start a fire you can't control," Clinton told campaign volunteers in St. Louis. President Obama, speaking at a fundraiser in Dallas, added to the criticism, saying candidates running for office should be focused on making America "even better, not insults and schoolyard taunts and manufacturing facts, not divisiveness along the lines of race and faith, certainly not violence against other Americans." Trump's rivals for the Republican presidential nomination also criticized him for conditions that incite some people to violence. "Donald Trump has created a toxic environment," Ohio Governor John Kasich said in a news conference Saturday in Cincinnati. Kasich said he has tried to run a positive campaign during his presidential bid. Building a campaign around negative comments, Kasich said, is "lowering the bar on American politics, [which] is not acceptable." Trump's leading challenger, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, said that "when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this type of nasty discord." Wyoming, District of Columbia Meanwhile, Cruz easily won Saturday's Republican caucus in the Western state of Wyoming, picking up nine delegates. Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Trump each won one delegate, with Trump earning only 7 percent of the vote. Republicans in Washington, DC held a primary Saturday, with Rubio edging out Kasich. Trump came in third. Rubio earned 10 delegates and Kasich the other nine. Organizers reported thousands of Republicans turned out to vote, with some waiting as long as two hours. Tuesday is pivotal Five important states hold primaries Tuesday, including Florida and Ohio - winner-take-all states where the top finisher wins all the delegates instead of splitting them with the runners up. Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina also hold primaries. Big wins by Trump Tuesday would give him a huge lead in the delegate count over Cruz and likely put the Republican nomination out of reach for Rubio and Kasich. Polls show Trump in a close race with Kasich in Ohio. Rubio has taken the unusual step of encouraging his supporters in Ohio to vote for Kasich to reduce the chances that Trump will win all of the state's delegates. Trump has many supporters among white working-class voters, and his blunt rhetoric and slogan promising to "Make America Great Again" could attract workers anxious about stagnating wages and years of decline in industrial jobs in the so-called U.S. "Rust Belt." For Democrats, Clinton is far out in front in the delegate count and Sanders is relying on big support by young voters to keep his candidacy strong. Margarethe Brummermann and Arizona: Beetles, Bugs, Birds and more (ABBB), 2009/2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express permission from this blogs author and owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Margarethe Brummermann and ABBB', with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. French police have arrested 14 people protesting the presence of a migrant camp in Calais after they blocked bridges and set fire to tires, calling for foreigners to go home. The protesters calling themselves Generation Identitaire or "Identity Generation" gathered early Saturday, carrying banners saying "Go Home" and "No Way." A press release from the group said they took over bridges "that allowed migrants to access the city of Calais." Calais has become a bottleneck for migrants hoping to cross the English Channel to Britain. Thousands of people have gathered in a refugee camp known as "the Jungle" for its abysmal living conditions. Several other, smaller camps also exist along the northern French coast. On Friday, security forces in Calais detained five men dressed as police officers who were suspected of attacking migrants. Macedonia's grudge Also Friday, Macedonia's president said his country has been forced to pay for the actions of the European Union in the current migrant crisis, costing the nation $28 million so far. In an interview published Friday in the German newspaper Bild, Gjorge Ivanov said Macedonia is fed up with the situation after having to declare a national crisis. He complained that the European Union has not contributed "a cent" to Macedonia's expenses and said the trade bloc has "completely lost sight" of security concerns as it struggles to accommodate millions of Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis fleeing violence and economic insecurity at home. Ivanov said his country had confiscated some 9,000 forged or stolen passports from the migrants and complained that Germany has declined to share information on biometric information technology or militant Islamists. Borders closing Thursday, Austria endorsed the decision by Macedonia and three other Balkan countries to close their borders to almost all migrants. Vienna called for the migrants' path to remain closed indefinitely. Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said her government supports the action to restrict immigrants trying to cross the Balkans to northern Europe. This week's action by Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia applies to all migrants except those planning to seek asylum in those four countries. In another development, Turkish news agencies said five migrants, including a three-month-old infant, have drowned off Turkey's western coast after a boat taking them to Greece sank on the way to the island of Lesbos. Nine people were reported rescued from the boat, which was carrying Afghan and Iranian migrants. Two are still missing. EU, Turkey working on plan In the face of U.N. opposition, the European Union and Turkey are working to finalize a plan to return to Turkey all migrants arriving in Greece from there. U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said such a plan would be illegal. "I urge the EU to adopt a much more rights-compliant and humane set of measures on migration" at a summit scheduled to begin March 17, Al Hussein told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva Thursday. "International guarantees protecting human rights may not be side-stepped or diluted," he added. "Any returns of people must be in conformity with international human-rights standards. Arbitrary and prolonged detention must be avoided." After months of disagreements among the 28 EU nations, EU leaders said this past week they will give Turkey more than $3 billion to help with the costs of hosting nearly three million Syrian refugees. In exchange for Turkey's help in stemming migration flows to Europe, the deal would include easing European visa requirements for Turks and a promise to speed up talks about Ankara's application to join the Union. The situation near the Greek-Macedonian border has been described as dire. Authorities said nearly 36,000 migrants and refugees were stranded in a muddy, unhygienic camp near the Idomeni border crossing into Macedonia. Others are stuck in Macedonia near the Serbian border, in a "no-man's-land" between the two countries' frontiers. The recently retired Foreign Affairs secretary of the Philippines says the countrys position on the South China Sea dispute should continue well into the next administration, which will be determined in May elections. Three days after he left his post, former secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters Friday that the Philippines should remain independent, being principled in a manner adhering to rule of law. The next administration should consider staying the course because apparently the people have approved of the foreign policy that we have embraced, he said. In his speech at a luncheon, del Rosario said the results of a recent survey showed three of the top four issues Filipinos feel the current administration handled well fell under his department. One of them was on promoting and defending the countrys maritime sovereignty. The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam all have competing claims in the South China Sea, while China has said it has indisputable sovereignty over almost all of the sea and its islands. Among the five claimants, the Philippines, led by del Rosario for the past five years, has been the most vocal in opposing Chinas claim. Excessive claims Manila has challenged the legality of what it calls Beijings excessive claims to the resource-rich, heavily traveled sea. In 2013 it filed an arbitration case under the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, questioning the lawfulness of the claim and seeking clarification on whether disputed formations in the sea were rocks or islands. China rejects the case, saying it opted out of participating in arbitration when it signed on to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. In the past two years, China has developed seven formations, most of which are listed in the Philippines case, turning them into artificial islands. At least three can support military craft and defense hardware. The 76-year-old Del Rosario, who cited health issues for retiring three months before of the end of President Benigno Aquinos term, said such moves have seriously heightened tensions and further highlight the urgency of an early promulgation of the [arbitration tribunals] decision. Aquino is stepping down at the end of June. Presidential candidate Mar Roxas, whom Aquino picked as his partys successor, is looking to continue the current policy. Opposition candidate Jejomar Binay has taken a softer stance toward China, although he has also said he will defend the Philippines sovereignty. But he has said joint exploration in the disputed sea between the two countries would help the Philippines tap into China's economic might. I read with bemused interest two items on the Opinion page of the March 4 issue of the Idaho Statesman. In an excellent letter to the editor, Margaret Anderson, of Boise, who identified herself as an unaffiliated voter, complained about the March 8 primary election in which only Republicans and Constitution Party members may vote and asked why all taxpayers are being required to pay for it. She accurately noted that there will be a second primary election on May 17 in which all can participate. On the same page there was an op-ed piece written by Jim Pierce, the second vice chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, in which he urged unaffiliated voters such as Anderson to pay attention, register as a Republican and participate in the real election on March 8. Pierce also acknowledged that unaffiliated voters in Idaho outnumber Republicans and Democrats combined. That is my understanding as well. Prior to 2011, Idaho had been an open primary state; that meant all voters could vote in any partys primary. This was apparently unacceptable to the leaders of the Republican Party, so they brought a lawsuit in federal court contending that an open primary violated their First Amendment rights to free association. In his 2011 decision, District Judge Lynn Winmill agreed with them, stating that, This right of freedom of association necessarily presupposes the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association and to limit the association to those people only. But the judge noted as well, An important corollary of the right to freely associate is the right not to associate (emphasis mine). So the Republicans were allowed to have their closed primary. But they were not content with that. They went beyond the parameters of Judge Winmills ruling and passed the law mandating the March 8 closed presidential primary and requiring all of us taxpayers to pay for it. Thus, Anderson and all unaffiliated voters, and I and all Democratic Party voters, are effectively deprived of our collective right not to associate with the Republicans because we are required to pay for their exclusive election. We are arguably being denied equal protection under the law in violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This could be litigated in the near future. The Democrats in Idaho express their presidential preferences in a caucus system in which only Democrats participate. This year the caucus for Ada County Democrats will be held on March 22. The costs associated with the caucus, as well as all other caucuses held around the state, are paid by the Democratic Party. The Democrats have never sought governmental assistance for their presidential nominating process. It is ironic that Pierce, speaking for his party, so cavalierly ignores my right and that of thousands of others to choose not to pay for nominating the likes of Donald Trump and the rest of their candidates that they are touting. Sorry, but I choose not to associate. Can I get a tax refund? YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. A grenade explosion at the eastern section of the military units of the Defense Army killed Sargis Ohanyan born 1997, soldier of the Defense Army , on March 11, at 15: 45. As Armenpress was informed by the Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, an investigation is underway to determine the details of the incident. The Defense Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh shares the grief and expresses its support and condolences to the soldier's family, friends and co-servicemen. On the line of contact of Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijani armed forces, on March 11 and early morning of March 12, the adversary fired more than 2300 shots from different caliber weapons at Armenian positions : 60mm mortars (16 shells) and RGP -7 grenade launchers(4 missiles). The Defense Army suppressed the adversarys attack by response actions. About Me Mohd. Kamal bin Abdullah I am Mohd. Kamal bin Abdullah, who resides in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. I hold a post-graduate law degree from the United Kingdom. I blog to tell MALAYSIANS THE TRUTH. View my complete profile Blog Archive YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. Unidentified persons attacked an armored police vehicle in the Turkish city of Nusaybin. "Armenpress" reports citing the Turkish Demokrathaber.net An improvised explosive device was thrown at the vehicle, injuring two policemen. They were both hospitalized. It is reported that their condition is critical. Turkish law enforcement agencies are conducting operations to identify the perpetrators of the attack. Hello. Olen elakkeella oleva, talla hetkella 67 vuotta vanha ukko. Kun olin lapsi sota oli viela hyvin lahella, etenkin aikuisten miesten kahvipoyta keskusteluissa. Samaan aikaan kun opin lukemaan 1955-1958 ilmestyi runsaasti erilaisia sarjakuvalehtia, ja poikien moniin leikkeihin kuului pyssyleikit, joko villi-lansi tai juuri paattynyt sota. Nama kaikki juurtuivat syvalle pojan sieluun ja etenkin tuohon aikaan ilmestyneet sarjakuva lehdet lisasivat kiinnostusta. Muovi mallit tulivat elamaani 1958, eraan japanilaisen sarjan merkeissa. Seuraavana oli Aurora, Lindberg, ja sitten Airfix. Lopulta myos Esci, Italeri, Hasegawa, Heller... ----- A strike at Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC) has been suspended after talks between the Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibeh Kachikwu, and the workers unions, local media reported on Thursday. Oil workers in the West- Nigeria have shut down the operations of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Wednesday over plans to unbundle the state-run oil firm into 30 companies. The NNPC is to be unbundled into 30 profit-making companies with separate managing directors in the weeks ahead as part of an ongoing transformation of the national oil company. According to the head of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, Saleh Abdullahi, the strike has been suspended with immediate effect. In his words, at the end of the meeting, the unions were able to reach some important agreements with the minister. With that basic understanding, the unions feel there is no reason to continue with the strike any further. Both parties agreed to set up a tripartite committee consisting staff of the corporation, its management and the workers unions to henceforth look exhaustively at all issues capable of generating misunderstanding and conflict Note that, President Muhammadu Buhari has prioritised reforming Nigerias oil sector, long mired in endemic corruption and mismanagement. The U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Wednesday removed a Sudanese private cement factory from a blacklist of firms subjected to economic sanctions. Atbara Company, one of the biggest manufacturers in Sudan, was added to OFACs list in 1999 when it was owned by the Sudanese government. The US lifted the sanctions, without giving further details. We havent been officially notified by the Americans of such a decision, so we cant comment until we officially know the reasons behind the decision, the Sudanese foreign affairs ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig said. Last year, a United Nations expert has called for an easing of the unilateral sanctions that the United States imposed on Sudan 19 years ago. Sudanese factories have been affected by the American sanctions which put restrictions on the spare part importation, technologies and on some other importation and exportations of the Sudanese factories. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and International Sanctions Idriss Jazairy said the sanctions are hurting innocent people instead of the officials and that they need to be revised given that Sudan no-longer offers support to terror groups. Sudan has been subjected to American economic sanctions since1997. It has also been on the list of countries the US says sponsor terrorism. YEREVAN, March 12, ARMENPRESS. After the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide Turkish authorities made a decision to hold events on 101th anniversary of Gallipoli Battle traditionally on March 18. 'Armenpres' reports citing Anadolu agency that the first repetition of the events has already been made. The last repititions of the events will be carried out on March 16-17. Offiial Ankara announced on holding the events on 100th anniversary of Gallipoli Battle on April 24 by the purpose to overshadow the events in memory of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. However, previously the mentioned events had never been counducted on March 18. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited heads of more than 100 countries, including Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan to attend the events on Gallipoli battle on April 24. Anyway, the regular Turkish diplomatic trick did not have a sussess as leaders of the Super Powers primarily preferred to visit Armenia on April 24 to commemorate the memory of victims of the Armenian Genocide. Your digital subscription includes access to content from all our websites in your region. Access unlimited news content and The Canberra Times app. Premium subscribers also enjoy interactive puzzles and access to the digital version of our print edition - Today's Paper. A string of suicides among young people has hit an impoverished aboriginal reserve in remote central Canada, leading to calls Friday for more social services support for native communities. Five teenagers and a young mother at Pimicikamak Cree Nation have killed themselves in recent weeks and the reserve's leader has said more than 140 people have attempted suicide or had suicidal thoughts in the past three months. About 100 young people are on suicide watch at the reserve of 8,000 people, located 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of Winnipeg. "Indigenous communities are facing a suicide epidemic. When a member of our community is lost to suicide, particularly a young person, the entire community experiences the repercussions collectively," said Dawn Lavell-Harvard, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada. "More robust services are required immediately in our communities to stop these tragedies from re-occurringthat means acknowledging the structural oppression our communities are subjected to and putting forward stronger services now." Suicide is a serious problem in Canada's aboriginal communities. Government statistics show suicide rates are five to seven times higher among First Nations youth compared to average young Canadians. In an interview with the Winnipeg Free Press, reserve acting chief Shirley Robinson blamed the suicides on the community's 80 percent unemployment rate and overcrowding due to a housing shortage. Officials said the community needed at least six mental health experts to help support the lone qualified therapist serving the reserve, local media reported. Explore further GPs call for more specialist knowledge to manage suicide risk in young people 2016 AFP Recently, researchers compared the effects of tai chi to leg strengthening exercises (a physical therapy called "lower extremity training," or LET) in reducing falls. Falls are a leading cause of serious injuries in older adults and can lead to hospitalization, nursing home admission, and even death. Arthritis, heart disease, muscle weakness, vision and balance problems, dementia, and other age-related health problems can increase an older adult's risk for experiencing a fall. The study is published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. In their study, researchers assigned 368 people 60-years-old and older who had received medical attention for a fall into one of two groups. The first group received hour-long individual tai chi classes conducted by tai chi instructors every week for 24 weeks. Tai chi is an exercise practice developed in China hundreds of years ago. It combines certain postures and gentle movements with mental focus, breathing, and relaxation. Tai chi can be practiced while you're walking, standing, or even seated. Deep breathing, weight shifting, and leg stepping movements are part of the practice. The second group received individual, hour-long LET sessions for 24 weeks conducted by physical therapists. Sessions included stretching, muscle strengthening, and balance training. The researchers asked participants in both groups to complete at least 80 percent of their sessions, and also to practice either tai chi or LET at home every day during the six- month program and the 12-month follow-up. During the course of the study, all participants kept diaries and recorded any falls they experienced, and they shared their diaries with researchers each month. After six months of training, people in the tai chi group were significantly less likely to experience an injury-causing fall than were people in the LET group. Even a year after taking the training, people who took tai chi were about 50 percent less likely to experience an injury-causing fall compared to people in the LET group. Though participants in the study took individualized tai chi classes at home, "I suggest that older adults learn tai chi exercises in a class, and practice at home at least once a day," said Mau-Roung Lin, PhD, Professor and Director of the Institute of Injury Prevention and Control, Taipei Medical University in Taipei, Taiwan, a co-author of the study. Explore further Tai Chi linked to improved physical capacity in certain common long term conditions More information: Hei-Fen Hwang et al. Effects of Home-Based Tai Chi and Lower Extremity Training and Self-Practice on Falls and Functional Outcomes in Older Fallers from the Emergency Department-A Randomized Controlled Trial, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (2016). Journal information: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society Hei-Fen Hwang et al. Effects of Home-Based Tai Chi and Lower Extremity Training and Self-Practice on Falls and Functional Outcomes in Older Fallers from the Emergency Department-A Randomized Controlled Trial,(2016). DOI: 10.1111/jgs.13952 Provided by American Geriatrics Society US regulators tentatively agreed on Friday to permit a field test of genetically modified mosquitoes that are designed to help limit the spread of Zika virus and other infectious diseases. In a document published on its website, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said male mosquitoes called "OX513A" are unlikely to present risks to humans, animals or the environment. However, the proposed test in the Florida Keys off the southeastern tip of the United States will not be given the final go-ahead until the FDA receives feedback from the public and other stakeholders, a process that will take months. The genetically modified "Aedes aegypti" mosquito by British company Oxitec carries a gene that significantly shortens its life, while offspring die before reaching adulthood. The aim is to eliminate wild mosquito populations that spread infectious diseases such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya and West Nile. The genetically modified mosquitoes have been found to be effective in reducing the wild mosquito population in small tests carried out in Brazil and a few other countries. The FDA fast-tracked the Oxitec application, with the pending arrival of warm weather that encourages the breeding of disease-spreading mosquitoes, an FDA official recently told Congress. The continental US has not yet seen any cases of active Zika transmission but there are fears mosquitoes can spread the virus in parts of the US during the warmer months. Authorities have also said mosquitoes are becoming resistant to insecticides, adding urgency to the task of finding a way to reduce their numbers. The FDA's decision was based heavily on an environmental impact assessment submitted by Oxitec, whose parent company is American biotech firm Intrexon. The documents from the FDA and Oxitec said the genetically modified mosquitoes are unlikely to "escape" and form large wild populations because they are designed to die young. Additionally, they should be safe for humans and other animals because the mosquitoes released in the test will be mostly male. Only female mosquitoes bite and feed on blood. "FDA found that the probability that the release of OX513A male mosquitoes would result in toxic or allergenic effects in humans or other animals is negligible," it said in the documents released Friday. The mosquito-borne Zika virus is blamed for a spike in cases of the birth defect microcephaly in Brazil and other Latin American countries most affected by the outbreak. Scientists have not confirmed the link between Zika and microcephaly, a serious and irreversible condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and deformed brains, but health authorities have advised pregnant women not to travel to areas affected by Zika. 2016 AFP WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DEMOCRAT PARTY? I can no longer remain in todays Demo Party that is now under the control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively undermine our freedoms, are hostile to people of faith, demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after opponents.TULSI GABBARD YEREVAN, March 12, ARMENPRESS. On March 12 Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan, along with Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO PA) Sergey Naryshkin, members of parliamentary delegations, participated in the outgoing session of the Assembly, CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha, Armenian Defense Minsiter Seyran Ohanyan and with offiial figures of Armenian and Russian Defense Ministries visited Armenia and Russia joint military air base in 'Erebuni' airport. 'Armenpress' was informed from the Department of Mass Media and Public Relations of the Armenian President's Staff that representatives of the Air Forces presented the visitors the exhibition of arms and military equipment with modern designs after which Armenia President, accompanied by the delegation members, watched warplane demonstration flights within the framework of CSTO tasks. Donald Trump will be endorsed by the former Broward GOP chair at his rally in Boca Raton Sunday night. Richard DeNapoli said he will introduce Trump and the additional speakers. The lineup for speakers hasnt been finalized yet but DeNapoli said he has heard one speaker is Laura Wilkerson of Texas, whose son was killed by an illegal immigrant in 2010. DeNapoli said he initially supported Jeb Bush for president. But when Bush dropped out after the South Carolina primary, I officially endorsed and signed up for Donald Trump. DeNapoli serves as Trumps volunteer Fort Lauderdale area director and is on his statewide leadership team. He finished his volunteer post as Broward GOP chair in 2012 when he took a job on the west coast of Florida but still has a home in Hollywood. Trump will hold a rally at the 6,000-capacity Sunset Cove Amphitheater in a Palm Beach County park in Boca Raton at 6 p.m. Sunday. He will hold a rally at Trump National Doral Monday. The Trump campaign will pay Palm Beach County $3,500 to rent out the facility, county parks and recreation director Eric Call said. Law enforcement officials from the Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office met Friday with the Trump campaign to discuss security. "In their words, they've got it completely covered in the event that anything happens," Call said. Trump cancelled a Chicago rally Friday after protesters packed the site where he was to speak. @ByKristenMClark Select principals in seven Florida school districts -- including Broward, Palm Beach and Pinellas -- could soon have more power to oversee operations at low-performing public schools. In one of its final votes on the last day of the 2016 session, the Legislature gave final, bipartisan approval to HB 287, which creates the three-year "Principal Autonomy Pilot Program Initiative." The program aims to give principals at some failing schools more say over staff assignments and program funding. Republicans Sen. Rene Garcia, of Hialeah, and Reps. Manny Diaz Jr., of Hialeah, and Chris Sprowls, of Palm Harbor, sponsored the legislation with the goal of trying a new way to improve student performance and school operations at failing schools. The other four school districts eligible to participate are Duval, Jefferson, Madison and Seminole counties. Districts have to seek approval from the state board to engage in the program -- by identifying three schools that received grades of "D" or "F" in two of the past three years and offering a plan of how "highly effective" principals assigned to those schools could better allocate resources. Senators passed the bill by a 36-4 vote on Friday, about an hour before ending the 2016 session. Those opposed were Democratic Sens. Jeff Clemens of Lake Worth, Dwight Bullard of Cutler Bay, Eleanor Sobel of Hollywood and Arthenia Joyner of Tampa, the Senate Democratic leader. The House passed it in mid-February by a 97-17 vote. Those opposed in the House were also some of the chamber's Democrats. The bill now goes to Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who still needs to sign it into law. The annual budget lawmakers also approved late Friday includes $910,000 to fund the pilot program. Of that, $700,000 is a one-time allocation. State Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, has filed to run for re-election in 2016, but that doesn't mean he is certain to do so. Within moments of the Legislature's annual session ending on Friday, Lee cast doubt on whether he'll run again for the Senate later this year. "There are some compelling reasons to call it a day," Lee said. "I'm just going to go back and think about it for a little while and see what is in the best interest of the (Republican) caucus, my family and try to make a decision later on in the spring." Lee served in the Florida Senate from 1996 to 2006 and then returned in 2012. Lee was Senate president from 2004 to 2006 and for the last two years has been the Senate Appropriations chairman where he was responsible for crafting the state budget. "I feel like I've pretty much done everything there is to do up here," Lee said. "So there is part of that that is in the back of my mind. I'm a long way from my family." Seven weeks ago, Lee re-filed to run for the newly redrawn District 20, which includes parts of Pasco, Hillsborough and Polk counties. He is the only candidate to have filed to run in the race. If he runs for the new district, Lee will have to move north. That is because his home in Brandon is in the newly redrawn District 21, which is the same district Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton currently lives. Galvano is in line to become Senate President in 2018 Lee has amassed more than $177,000 in his re-election campaign account. In a political action committee he runs, called The Conservative, he's raised just under $800,000 since July. @PatriciaMazzei Jeb Bush told a Miami backer Friday that he doesn't plan a Republican presidential endorsement before Florida's primary Tuesday. Helen Aguirre Ferre, who campaigned extensively for Bush in Iowa while he was a candidate, told the Miami Herald she emailed the former Florida governor and got a response. "I said, 'People are asking me what you are thinking of doing,' and I said, 'Are you going to endorse anyone?'" she said. "And he said he was not endorsing prior to Tuesday. "He repeated it twice, that he was not endorsing prior to Tuesday. Does that mean a Tuesday morning endorsement? I don't know, you know. And what would that mean? And who would he be endorsing? I don't know." Ferre stressed that the email exchange took place before GOP front-runner Donald Trump canceled a Friday night rally in Chicago, which was followed by raucous protests and condemnations from his remaining rivals. Bush met separately earlier this week with Rubio, John Kasich and Ted Cruz while all three were in town for a debate at the University of Miami. None of the men have spoken publicly about what was discussed. @PatriciaMazzei Everett Sutton wants to make clear that he does not often sit in an aluminum chair when he greets arrivals at an early-voting site, day after day, for Marco Rubio. Ive got one if I need it, but I stand and talk to virtually every person who walks into the polls, Sutton said Friday. Tha's partly why he didnt recognize himself when Rubio mentioned Sutton in Thursday nights Miami Republican presidential debate. Let me tell you what this election is about for me, said the Florida senator, whose must-win, home-state primary could be his last stand. On Tuesday night, I didnt do as well, obviously, as I wanted to. And I was a little disappointed when I got home. And my wife told me a story that night, which is the reason why I can get up the next day and keep fighting. Theres a gentleman here in South Florida who just got out of surgery. And his doctors told him he needs to be home resting. But every afternoon, he takes his little aluminum chair and he sits outside of an early polling center and holds a sign that says Marco Rubio. Because for him, I symbolize all the sacrifices that his generation made so their children could have a better life than themselves. That gentleman has not given up on me and I am not going to give up on him. Sutton watched the debate Of course I did and went back to his post at the Coral Reef Branch Library on Friday morning without realizing his brief brush with political fame. Then a Rubio aide came by to offer thanks for his dedication, explaining Sutton was the man Rubio had mentioned. I was very flattered, said Sutton, a 69-year-old father of four from Pinecrest. He goes to the same church as Rubio St. Louis in Pinecrest and has seen him but never met him, he said. More here. Photo courtesy Marco Rubio campaign @ByKristenMClark Despite getting various levels of momentum this session, many high-profile education proposals -- such as allowing computer coding to count as a foreign language -- failed to cross the finish line during the 2016 session. Here's a round-up of some major education-related proposals that failed to pass the Florida Legislature this year: -- Computer coding (HB 887/SB 468): The measure -- spearheaded by former Yahoo executive and Broward County Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate -- cleared the Senate and was poised to be taken up in the House, but that final vote never came. The proposal faced opposition from civil rights groups and Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who didn't agree that computer coding should be an alternative to traditional foreign languages. -- "Best & Brightest" teacher bonuses (HB 7043/SB 978): Attempts to permanently enact the policy -- which awards "highly effective" teachers based on their SAT/ACT scores -- in state law faltered because of opposition in the Senate. However, the bonuses will still be funded with $49 million for another school year, as a compromise to the House. Education budget Chairman Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said Friday that returning lawmakers next year can further vet the policy and, with two years of data then, they can compare year-to-year gains in student and teacher performance. -- Alternative testing (SB 1360): Gaetz's plan to allow school districts and parents to choose alternative standardized tests for their students in lieu of the Florida Standards Assessments was ambitious from the start. Gaetz never had a House companion to his bill, which is a necessity for proposals to have a chance at becoming law. The bill was scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor on this week, but Gaetz pulled it -- acknowledging its defeat. He said, though, that he hoped it sent a symbolic message that this issue was important for the Senate and that lawmakers should explore it again next year. -- Charter school authorizer (HJR 759/SJR 976): Rep. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, and Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, sought to put on 2016 statewide ballot a constitutional amendment that would create a statewide body to authorize, operate, control and supervise all charter schools. School district officials feared it would take away local-decision making from county school boards, and the League of Women Voters also vocally opposed the concept. The measure stalled in Senate committees; it passed all House committees but wasn't taken up on the floor. -- City school districts (HJR 539/SJR 734): This proposed constitutional amendment from Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, and Rep. Matt Caldwell, R-North Fort Myers -- to allow cities to break away from county school districts and establish their own -- stalled in committee. The House held a workshop discussion on it, but it was never even considered in the Senate. -- School recess (HB 833/SB 1002): Passionate, self-proclaimed "recess moms" pleaded with lawmakers to pass this proposal this session. It would have required elementary schools to offer 20 minutes of recess each school day. They had near-unanimous support in the House but were stonewalled in the Senate, when Education Pre-K-12 Chairman Sen. John Legg, R-Trinity, refused to consider the proposal in committee. The Senate sponsor, Umatilla Republican Sen. Alan Hays, attempted a last-ditch effort to get it tacked on to another bill, but he was blocked by a procedural vote on the Senate floor. -- Elected education commissioner (HB 767/SB 942): Sen. Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, and Rep. Debbie Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, proposed changing the Florida Constitution to make the statewide education policymaker an elected position again. Garcia's bill got unanimous approval in one Senate committee, but Mayfield's bill wasn't taken up. House K-12 Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, said she felt the proposal was one that the upcoming Constitutional Revision Commission should explore. -- Reading instruction (HB 7021): Adkins' spearheaded this measure through the House to improve instruction and early-intervention strategies for elementary school students who struggle to read, such as those who have dyslexia. It passed the House and had some consideration in the Senate. The House tried to add it to a massive education bill with two days left in session, but it ultimately wasn't included. *This post has been corrected. The principal autonomy bill (HB 287) did pass late on Friday afternoon before session ended. Got some ideas about economics, policy, science, art or whatever, and you can write? Let us know here , we're looking for contributors! YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. The ceasefire agreement in Syria is very effectively implemented, the results are noticeable. The director of "Noravank" Reasearch-Educational Foundation Gagik Harutyunyan said at the press conference in Armenpress. "This was an imposed truce, the rebels realized that by continuing their actions they will have no perspective, big actors saw that the situation has changed and was getting out of control and agreed on the ceasefire. The ceasefire is rather effective, many opposition teams joined the ceasefire, negotiations are underway between different groups. It seems that the first steps are encouraging. There is hope that light is seen at the end of the tunnel ", Gagik Harutyunyan said. He considers the Russian proposal to federalize Syria a reassuring element. "The problem is that there are different religious groups in Syria. Federalizing Syria will allow these groups to live together within same borders on some basics. Today the idea that territorial integrity must be maintained in Syria dominates. Another issue is that national, religious representations should be more or less involved in more important roles in the management of the state, "the director of the foundation said. Although the ceasefire has been established and positive results can be seen, complete cessation of hostilities in Syria will take some time, Gagik Harutyunyan mentioned. "In the context of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, we know what ceasefire means. It is not a matter of one day, but it should be noted that in Syria the atmosphere of eliminating one another has changed. So, the first results are encouraging, Gagik Harutyunyan said. Commenting on the upcoming parliamentary elections in Syria, as well as the nomination of Armenian candidates, Gagik Harutyunyan noted that electoral processes will be held in very harsh conditions. He highlighted the importance of participation of the Armenian candidates, but also reminded about the losses of the Armenian community. "We had many losses in the Armenian community. At a time we were speaking about more than 100 thousand Armenians living in Syria. The optimistic estimates today are about 20 thousand Armenians, others mainly left the country. Despite the reduced number of Armenians in Syria, in any case, there is hope that we will have one Armenian MP in parliament, Gagik Harutyunyan said, noting that the experience of Iran, Lebanon should be taken into consideration in this matter. This is my first visit to Kashi, even though, like many Indians, it has been part of my vocabulary and psyche since birth. When my grandfather lay dying, one of the things at his bedside was a small copper pot of Ganga water, collected at Kashi and to be poured into his lips when the soul left the body. My mother performed this act and, to this day, gains solace from it. Today, Kashi is like any other dusty town in north Indiaa hodgepodge of streets, tightly packed buildings, street signs askew, chaotic honking traffic and the obligatory cow in the middle of the street looking bewildered but determined not to leave its spot. Godowlia Circle is the main meeting point when talking to guides. Four roads lead away from it: one towards the Kashi Vishwanath temple, one towards Dashashwamedh Ghat and two others towards bazaars and shops. Rickshaw-wallahs call out to touristssitting on three-wheeled cycles, like a childs tricycle on steroids, and just as gaily painted. Policemen in khaki ineffectually wave the honking cars and scooters around. It could be any dusty north Indian town, but it isnt. Kashi claims to be the worlds oldest continually inhabited city. Unlikely. That status probably goes to towns in the LevantJericho, Aleppo, Faiyum or Byblos, some of which go back to 4500 BC as compared to Kashis 1500 BC. A fair claim is that Kashi is the oldest city in India. Duck into one of the small bylanes that branch off the main roads and it feels like Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nizwa or any other ancient town in Mexico, Egypt, Morocco or Rajasthan. Cobblestone streets, tiny alleys, shopfronts displaying silver jewellery and locals in loose long clothes (perfect for the tropical weather) hurrying on urgent errands, picking their way through cow dung, stagnant water and stray dogs curled up on the street. The streets are tiny and wind through a bewildering maze of shops and houses. One entire street sells paneer, one sells kachoris, one sells silver, one sells hand-stuffed beds and, to round it all off, there is hearty lassi and paan. Sacred food in Kashi is everywhere. Kashi in the predawn darkness is magical. From the boat, the outlines of the two banks of the Ganga are visible, but not much beyond that. Birds chirp, a temple bell clangs, the oars slap softly into the water. On the shore, the dim outlines of the buildings can be easily be mistaken for outlines of trees. It truly looks like Ananda Vana, or Forest of Bliss, its most ancient name, given by Shiva himself, according to the Kashi Rahasya (Kashis Secret), a 16th century text. In it, Shiva says that in Kashi, his lingams (Shivas emblem) are everywhere, like little sprouts that rise spontaneously out of sheer bliss. This is still true. Wherever you look in Kashi, it seems, there is a lingam. There are tiny street-side temples, 33,000 of them by one count, each of which holds a lingam. Our guide stops at a shop selling cigarettes, chips, betel paan and other miscellany. We peer behind the bottles to find a small stone lingam sitting next to the shopkeeper. Homes contain lingams, as do street corners. Black lingams are painted on walls, ceilings, buses, auto-rickshaws and tricycles that carry pilgrims from temple to temple. More than anything else, Kashi is Shivas city, his chosen place, one that he vowed never to forsake for all eternity. Photo: Shoba Narayan Much of the mythology about the city comes from the Kashi Khanda, a 13th century book of 11,000 verses in praise of Kashi, and part of the massive Skanda Purana, which talks about Kartikeya, the son of Shiva and Parvati, but also describes various pilgrimage sites. Like much of this type of literature, the stories come in the form of a conversation between a husband and a wifein this case, a short sage named Agastya and his wife, Lopamudra. The sage lists all the Hindu sacred sites that are capable of giving the four purusharthas, or the four objectives/goals of human life: dharma, or righteous duty; artha, or wealth and prosperity; kama, or love; and moksha, or liberation. He proceeds to list out the names of these places, and I have to say that I dont recognize a couple of themperhaps these were the ancient names. They are Prayag, Naimisharanya, Kurukshetra, Gangadwar, Avanti, Ayodhya, Mathura, Dwarka, Badrikashram and Purushottam Kshetra. But nothing beats Kashi, he says. The other story involves the sage and his wife meeting Skanda, or lord Kartikeya. When they sing his praises, Kartikeya replies, I can go to any part of the world that I wish, but here I am, doing austere penances so that I can reach Kashi. I havent yet been successful. If anyone thinks that he can attain Kashi just by performing austerities, he is totally wrong. Kashi cannot be attained until one has the blessing of Shivalord Mahadeva. And if you are fortunate enough to reach Kashi, you would be foolish to leave. O Agastya and Lopamudra, you both are fortunate to have lived in Kashi. Please let me touch your body, which has acquired immeasurable holiness due to its proximity to this holiest of cities." Having said this, Skanda reverently touched different parts of Agastyas body as if he were touching the sacred soil of Kashi. Too much closeness, you may think, as you visualize a god touching different parts (which parts?) of a saints body. But the story illustrates Kashis importance in the pantheon of holy places in Hinduism. It was in Kashi that the first jyotirlingam, or Shivas shaft of light, appeared for the first time, something that I read about in Diana Ecks comprehensive book, Banaras: City of Light. The 12 jyotirlingams comprise one of many Hindu pilgrim circuits; along with visiting all the Krishna temples and the four dhams in the north, south, east and west. My mother wants to visit all the 12 jyotirlingams before she dies and every now and then, we plot her itinerary togetherto Ujjain, Aurangabad, Dwarka and other locations where Shivas shaft of light made its appearance. Kashi, and I didnt know this, is the original one. It happened at the beginning of the Kali Yuga, the age in which we are living now. Hinduisms view of time is expansive and would make productivity mavens who want to account for every minute of the day freak out. We have kalpas, manvantaras and yugas. The shortest is a yuga which is 432,000 years long. In the Brahma Vaivartha Purana, Krishna tells Ganga that the first 10,000 years of this Kali yuga will be good before humans sink into avarice. We are, thankfully, only 5,000 years in. I wonder if this destruction that Hinduism imagined is connected to the climate change and oceans rising that environmentalists talk about. For our purposes, we can say that it happened at the beginning of time, which was the end of the previous age. There was nothingness. Shiva resided alone. He longed for company. So, he created Narayana or Vishnu, who slept in yoga-nidra (yogic sleep pose) on the milky ocean on a bed made of the coils of a giant serpent. From Narayanas navel sprouted a lotus on which sat Brahma. In the vast expanse before time and creation, Brahma thought he was all-powerful, the original human. He grew proud. Vishnu said, Hey, you are not the all-powerful. Shiva is." They fought for many aeons, a clash of the titans, a battle of egos. Suddenly, between these two warriors appeared a great big shaft of light that pierced the heavens and then beyond and stretched downwards till infinity. Vishnu and Brahma stood stupefied and humbled. Who are you, they asked. And why have you chosen this place to appear? I am Vishweshwara, the lingam of light and this place is Kashi, where I will live for this age and the next," said the glowing shaft of light. People who come and visit me in this sacred city will be absolved of their sins and attain liberation from human bondage." There was more. When the next pralayam (apocalypse) happens, when the earth gets swallowed up by torrential floods and never-ending flames, Kashi alone will be held aloft on the tines of my trident. I will never forsake this city, and for this reason, it is called Avimukta (Never Forsaken)." No wonder the people of Kashi have a certain je ne sais quoi about them. If I lived in Shivas chosen city; the place that he has pledged to save and cherish no matter what, I would feel pretty complacent as I ate my piping hot kachori breakfast too. Kashi ke khankar Shiva Shankar hai," they say. In every stone in Kashi lies Shiva. Merely living in Kashi assures protection, and on top of that, you have 33,000 temples to pass by and pray to, and the 100 billion Shiva-lingams that are supposed to be in Kashi. Heaven is guaranteed. The people of Kashi are aware of this. As we walk up and down the gentle slopes of Kashi, our guide smugly says that we are walking on the three forks of Shivas trident, the ones that will hold Kashi up above the swirling flood waters at the end of time. He glances at me as if to say, Top that." In another version of this story, Brahma and Vishnu decide to find out the top and bottom of Shivas shaft of light. Brahma flies upwards and Vishnu takes the form of a boar and digs deep. To no avail. Neither is able to reach the top or bottom. On the way to the top, Brahma sees a ketki flower falling down. He persuades the flower to lie on his behalf. When the two contestants meet back, Vishnu admits that he has not be able to touch Shivas feet. Brahma lies and says that he has seen the top of Shiva head. In anger, Shiva chops off Brahmas fifth head with his finger nail. To his horror, Brahmas skull is stuck to his hand. The reason: Brahma is a Brahmin and Shiva has committed the great sin of chopping off a Brahmins head. Brahma-hathya, they called it. In Hinduism, there are five great sins: pancha maha papa. They are stealing, drinking alcoholic beverages, killing a Brahmin, lusting after your gurus wife and associating with people who engage in these activities. This was probably written for young men who lived with their guru in gurukulas. The only woman they probably saw was their teachers wife. In todays world, it could probably be rewritten as getting drunk, killing people, stealing, having extramarital affairs and keeping bad company. Shiva the ascetic killed a BrahminBrahma. As penance for this sin, Shiva wandered the earth for 12 years, using Brahmas skull as a begging bowl. In the end, he enters Kashi and the skull falls off. Shiva dances in delight. He is freed of this great sin, as is anyone who enters Kashi. For this reason, it is called kapala mochanashedding of the skull. The logic is that if Kashi could help Shiva shed his sin, it can help anyone reduce their karmic load. It wasnt just Shiva who was attracted to Kashi. Every god resides here. For this, we have to go back to a virtuous king named Divodasa, who ruled Kashi. Every kingdom needs only one ruler, he said. So, if you want me to rule, Shiva must go out of Kashi, he said. So, the gods persuaded Shiva to leave Kashi. Which was fine, for a while. Then Shiva started longing for Kashi. He sent his ganas or minions to Kashi to try to persuade Divodasa to let him come back. Divodasa said no. But the ganas were so taken up by Kashi that they stayed back instead of returning to Shiva. So, it was with the yoginis or female goddesses that Shiva sent, with the devas, the sun, the moon, the air and water gods. Pretty much all who came to Kashi didnt want to leave. Finally, Brahma came and asked Divodasa to do 10 ashwamedha yagnas (horse sacrifices) at the ghat that still bears that name. Even that was successful. Finally, Vishnu came in the guise of a saint and sowed the seeds of depression and dissatisfaction into this virtuous king. Ask Shiva to come back to Kashi, said this saint-astrologer-Buddhist monk (it varies in the tellings). Only then will you be happy. The king invited Shiva back to Kashi. A delighted Shiva returned to his city and has never left. Kashis misfortunes", as Diana Eck says in her book, began in 1194. Muslim invaders led by Qutbuddin Aibak looted the city. He destroyed close to 1,000 temples and built mosques on top of many of them. By some accounts, 1,400 camel loads of cash, gold, silver and jewellery were carried away as loot. This trend continued. The Hindus kept rebuilding the temples, the invaders kept destroying themFiroz Shah in 1376 and Sikander Lodi in 1496. The Mughal emperor Akbar provided some respite, but this changed with Aurangazebs ascension to the throne. He destroyed some of the most important temples, including the Vishweshwara and the Bindu Madhava temples, and had mosques built in their place. They still exist to this day. Today, the tiny lanes around the mosque and temple are tightly patrolled. I stand in a long line without mobile phone or camera, waiting to get into the Vishwanath temple. Inside, the Shiva lingam is small, relative to the monumental myth that surrounds it. I carry some milk and a bilva leaf known to be Shivas favourite. I pour the milk on top of the lingam and am quickly hurried out by the police and priests guarding the entrance and exit. It is in the Kashi Vishwanath temple that the saptha rishi (seven sages) aarthi occurs at around 7pm every night. Shiva taught these seven sages or seven preceptors the secrets of yoga and then asked them to spread it to the seven corners of the world. The sages were sad to be leaving Shiva, so the god taught them a simple technique called saptha rishi aarthi. Doing this, he said, would bring them close to him; and allow them to feel his presence. The saptha rishi aarthi is still done every day for this reason. Hindu rituals, in that sense, are like software coding: you do this and you get that. If this then that (IFTTT). Temple rituals build up stacks of energy", says Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of the Isha Foundation, in his blog. Watching the saptha rishi aarthi at the Kashi Vishwanath temple is a surreal spiritual experience. The priests chant words that originated in the Sama Veda and are set in the Hindustani raag, Shree. Seven of them sit in a circle around the small lingam. They hold stacks of flickering oil lamps that they move in a synchronized way. Temple bells clang. All of it builds up a certain vibration that even the most sceptical non-believer can feel. What they build up in this temple in this one hour is phenomenal because they have a methodthat is what a ritual is," says Vasudev. Whoever conducts it, if it is done right, it will work, because it is a technology. These priests maintained the process. They kept well what is of some sanctity to them, and it still works fantastically." Yogis can create good energy through years of self-cultivation. Rituals are a mass-market approach. They have been codified. Priests follow the code. Their actions create a certain impact on the devotees who stand witness. Godliness being transferred to the masses, who dont have the wherewithal to engage in austerities or yoga. Ritual as a software code. A 17th century Sanskrit compendium called Puja Prakashathe elucidation of puja ritesby Mitra Mishra says that anyone who does the aarthi will dwell in heaven for ten million kalpas (aeons of time: around 4.32 billion years by one calculation)". The practice of observing god in this pleasing, flickering light (much beloved by women too, who believe that they look better in candlelight) induces shanta-rasa or peacefulness when done in solitude. The weird thing is that temples with their noise and chaos also create a certain peace for believers. The logic is to see inner light in this outer light; to submerge the ego into nothingness like how camphor burns, leaving nothing behind (somewhat akin to what contemporary artist Alwar Balasubramaniam talks about in his untraceable" sculptures that evaporate into nothingness). The saptha rishi aarthi at the Vishwanath temple induces, if not ego-sublimation, at least an element of contemplation. Perhaps, it is the way the priests chant the words; perhaps, it is the power of those flickering flames. The saptha rishis are seven sages, but they are also preceptors who appear at the beginning of every Hindu age and give rise to all humans. Each age has a different set of seven preceptors. It bugs me that there are no women linked to these sages, because how can you create the human race by yourself? These sages werent celibate by the way, even though pictures of them show old men with beardsmonk-like in appearance. The seven original Vedic age rishis were Vasishta, Vishwamitra, Agastya, Gautama, Bharadwaja, Jamadagni and Atri. The age that we are living in now is called Vaivaswata Manvantara (or the age of the Vaivaswata Manu) that is enfolded into a longer time span called the Swetha Varaha Kalpa. The Kali Yuga we are living in now lasts 432,000 years2016 is the year 5106, so we have a way to go before even this age ends. The Hindu unit of time is mindbogglingly micro and macro at the same time. Yugas multiply into kalpas, which in turn make up manvantaras, which all end up as a day in Brahmas life. In our time, the seven sages who are worshipped with the aarthi in the Kashi Vishwanath temple are Vasishta, Vishwamitra, Gautama, Bharadwaja, Jamadagni, Atri and Kashyapa (who has taken Agastyas place). Walking along the ghats is the best way to experience Kashi. There were 84 ghats on the Ganga, an auspicious number chosen presumably by multiplying the 12 zodiac signs or rashis into the seven sheaths that a human body is supposed to have. Today, only about 30 ghats remain. Of these, five are especially important: Assi, Dashashwamedh, Manikarnika, Pancha Ganga and Adi Keshava. The ghats are a hive of activity in the morning. I follow a couple as they walk down the steps into the Ganga. Both stand waist-deep in the river, take a handful of the water, hold it cupped in their hands, stare at the rising sun, mutter some prayers and gracefully offer it back to the river. I force myself to follow suit. I have come dressed for a dip in the Gangain light easy-drying clothes. I stand at the waters edge. A few minutes later, I turn back resolutely and walk up the steps. I cannot do it. I cannot bring myself to jump into her brown depths. Mind has won over mythat least for now. At the top of the ghat, under a banyan tree, sits a snake charmer. I sit before him and watch him play his flute to make two snakes curve and dance sinuously. It is a quintessentially Indian scene: a snake charmer wearing a turban, behind him a vermilion streaked banyan tree, and behind it the Ganga. View Full Image Photo: Shoba Narayan Kashi is the only place where the Ganga changes course. From her origin in Gangotri in the Himalayas, the 2,510-km-long river flows southwards, except in Kashi, where she makes a sweeping U-turn and flows northwards as if back to her source, or as ifas the people of Kashi sayshe cannot bear to leave the city. On my last day in Kashi, I stand on the banks of the Ganga before dawn, trying to figure out how I feel about the place. It occurs to me that I love this river. I love the impetuous imagery of young Ganga descending from the heavens; I love the fact that she purifies, not just the body but also mind, heart and soul. Just seeing the Ganga makes me happy in a way that makes no sense. The Danube is much more picturesque; the Seine just as poetic; the Potomac certainly far cleaner. Then, why am I drawn to the Ganga? It is as Nehru said: The Ganga especially is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of Indias age-long culture and civilization, ever-changing, ever-flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga." As the sun rises, I start walking into the Ganga. The water is icy cold. The orange orb that is rising on the horizon beckons me forward. Keep going, I tell myself as I feel the spongy earth underneath me. Remember the saints and scholars who have walked this path. The Buddha probably bathed in this river, exactly at this very spot. As did Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva and every Hindu philosopher worth his salt. They dipped into this holy river and achieved enlightenment. Poets and prime ministers paid homage to the Ganga. In Kashi. Dont be afraid. Think of your insignificance in the grand mythology that surrounds this holiest of Hindu cities. Who am I, a mere mortal, in front of this river of eternity? The waters rise up to my waist, then to my chest. I stop thinking and keep walking. F*** faecal coliform count. F*** bacterial overload. Jai Gange," I mutter. And then I hold my nose, close my eyes, purse my lips tightly and plunge into the river. How was it? Well, I am here, arent I? Writing all this stuff. This is the last in a four-part series from Kashi. Read the first part here, the second part here and the third part here. Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com Topics MILLVALE, Pa. (AP) As she grew up attending daily and Sunday Mass six days a week at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in the 1950s and 1960s, Diane Novosel and her classmates were surrounded by paintings they found baffling and haunting. And no wonder. Of what they could see of the murals in the small, dim church, nobody ever explained what they were about. There was a devilish hand reaching toward a top-hatted capitalist; a maternal figure hanging crucified in wartime; a peasant Madonna who could be as comforting in her muscular embrace as she could be terrifying in shattering battlefield weapons. "For a young child, there were just a lot of haunting images, and people really didn't talk about them," Novosel recalled. But eventually she and others gained a new appreciation for this unparalleled portrait of an ethnic community's faithful survival through desperate times. "I knew they were unique, I just didn't know the story," Novosel said. When she did, she realized, "This is the story of the immigrant experience, this is the story of Pittsburgh. It made it much more compelling that I do something to join up with the other people to do something to preserve them, to light them, to put them on the map." They're definitely on the map now, even if in an unexpected part of the map. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Croatian-American artist Maxo Vanka's completion of 25 murals that cover the walls and ceilings of the hilltop church in Millvale, a river town on Pittsburgh's northern border. In its day, the work was hailed both near and far as a daring landmark in modern ecclesiastical art "one of the few distinguished sets of church murals in the U.S.," said Time magazine and an homage to the precarious lives of its immigrant Croatian parishioners. "You'd hardly expect Millvale to be one of the great American art centers," The Pittsburgh Press said in 1941. "The smoky town, cradled in the industrial area along the Allegheny, populated largely by mill workers and miners, noted for its contributions to contemporary art? ... It's a fact." It added: "No innocuous, run-of-the-mine church art are these, but powerful social documents, in which a sensitive, brilliant artist has portrayed his abhorrence of injustice and war." *** Today, the artwork has transcended its original context, said Marya Halderman, granddaughter of the artist. "It's not just about Croatian immigrants anymore," said Halderman, who maintains the Bucks County farm where Vanka lived and worked. "It's about life and death, rich man-poor man, charity. It's just so universal." In two intensive bursts of creativity in 1937 and 1941, Vanka poured out a searing vision of faith and social conscience in egg tempura. He raged against the inhumanity of a world engulfed in the Great Depression, labor strife and the onset of World War II. Vanka blended everything from Byzantine iconography to the social indignation of the Mexican muralist movement of his time. He contrasted the Old World of Croatia with the New World of America and a wounded earth on the walls with a glorious heaven high above in the church ceiling. "It's religion, expressed in our social life," Father Albert Zagar, the former pastor of the church, said in 1941. "At the same time, it's completely Catholic." Over the decades, the murals suffered water damage and other wear. As later generations of parishioners slowly integrated into the American melting pot, they also lost their immediate connection to the paintings' narratives. More recently, the murals have enjoyed a revival in appreciation among parishioners and other admirers who have worked to restore them even as St. Nicholas faces the challenges and uncertain future that many small, urban ethnic parishes have faced. Those working to conserve the paintings and who have reversed years of deterioration were to mark the works' 75th anniversary at an annual gala Friday at the church, with the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka inaugurating new LED lighting to illuminate some of the paintings in the dark sanctuary. It was partly that interior darkness, Novosel said, that impeded her and her peers from clearly seeing and appreciating the paintings when she was younger. It wasn't until the parish hosted a drama based on the murals in 1981 by the late author David Demarest a Carnegie Mellon University English professor and advocate for preserving the region's industrial heritage that Novosel could see the paintings lit by spotlights and could hear about their context. "For the first time in my life I learned the story," she said. "It was such a revelation." Novosel, a former president of the preservation society and now a docent who regularly offers tours of the church, said once she knew about the artwork, "I didn't want to let that go." *** Maksimilijan Vanka was born in 1889 in Croatia, which was then in the Austro-Hungarian empire and later part of the ill-fated Yugoslavia. An out-of-wedlock son of European nobility, young Maxo was raised in his early years by a peasant woman, Dora Jugova the prototype for his enduring artistic motif of strong, affectionate and pious women. He later received formal training and grew to become an accomplished artist. He studied Croatian peasant costumes and other folkways. Vanka was studying art in Belgium during the outbreak of World War I. What he saw during his non-combatant service in the Red Cross is reflected in some of the St. Nicholas paintings, with their gas masks, ghoulish faces and barbed-wire crown of thorns. In 1931, Vanka married Margaret Stetten, an American Jewish woman. With fascism and war clouds spreading across the continent, the couple moved to the United States, first to New York and eventually Bucks County. After modest success with portraits and landscapes, Vanka drew positive notice with an exhibit in Pittsburgh. Among the viewers was Father Zagar of St. Nicholas, which was serving the Croatian Catholic population in and around Millvale. The parishioners had exchanged the rural poverty in their homeland for the hard and dangerous work in the mines and mills of southwestern Pennsylvania. A fire had gutted the St. Nicholas church interior, and Father Zagar invited Vanka to fill the blank new walls. Among Vanka's first works was a large Madonna and child above the main altar, accompanied by the Croatian words for "Mary, Queen of Croatians, pray for us." The artist posed Mary in Byzantine style yet far from the otherworldly wisps of traditional iconography, this Mary is a stocky peasant woman with burly hands. She wears a courtly, embroidered dress in traditional Croatian style and in the national colors of red, white and blue. Cultural historian Frances Babic of suburban Cleveland, who for many years curated the collection at the Croatian Heritage Museum there, immediately recognized Vanka's imagery when she visited St. Nicholas for the first time in the 1990s. Babic, who has studied depictions of the sacred feminine in Slavic art, said the painting "took my breath away." By dressing Mary in courtly robes, Vanka was affirming a peasant woman's dignity, she said. Babic said she was later invited to give a talk on the subject at St. Nicholas and was told afterward by one woman in the audience, herself poor, muscular, and hard-working: "Today, you validated my life." *** While many of Vanka's paintings are unconventional, they harbor traditional sentiments, she said: "The comforting element is the religion that seems to make it possible to get through the difficult times and to take pride in being who you are, even if others look at you as being in a low station in life," Babic said. Vanka "may not have been a member of any church, but he was very much in touch with the Creator," she added. Vanka flipped other conventions as well. The artist had for years painted the down-and-out in America, and he used an African-American steelworker as the model for Jesus in a crucifixion scene a then-radical departure from traditional depictions of Jesus as Caucasian. Vanka also painted pairs of contrasting murals. A painting in one set showed peasant Croatians in colorful native dress, kneeling in prayer in a landscape topped by a country church. In the mural's counterpart, immigrants in an America mill town wear drab work clothes, yet as they stand beside a kneeling Father Zagar, they hold a model of the modest yellow-brick St. Nicholas, their spiritual toehold in the New World. Another painting, "Croatian Mother Gives Her Son for War," shows a tableau of women in mourning dress, preparing a body for an already-crowded church graveyard. It is juxtaposed with "Immigrant Mother Gives Her Sons for Industry," showing a similar scene, based on an actual mining fatality in Johnstown, Cambria County. Both recall traditional paintings of Mary and other women mourning over the crucified Jesus. Yet another painting recalls the biblical parable of a rich man who feasted while the beggar Lazarus languished at his gate. In Vanka's depiction, the rich man is an American capitalist reading the 1941 stock report while he sits at a table laden with culinary delights, ignoring the African-American beggar beneath him. A demonic hand reaches behind the rich man with the hellfire that is his destiny. Across the way is a mural of a family sharing a modest meal in equality and fellowship, with Jesus himself hovering in their midst. *** Vanka's granddaughter said the Millvale murals are his greatest legacy. She recalled the artist having a gentle, spiritual demeanor which, along with his bearded, angular profile, prompted friends to nickname him Jesus. "He was not formally religious, he did not go to church, but everything he did, everything he said, had that spiritualness to it," said Halderman. She was impressed by how he "loved animals of all types," even carrying sparrows and goldfinches as pets an anecdote that recalls Vanka's depiction of St. Francis ringed by birds in one of the St. Nicholas murals. "They just lived on him, in his pocket, in the studio," she recalled. "That was a wonderment for a child to see." She was so taken with his sanctity that when the devastating news arrived that Vanka had drowned in 1963 while swimming off the coast of Mexico, she asked her grandmother, "Will Maxo be a saint now?" Today, Halderman and her husband continue to preserve the farm as Vanka had it, with old Croatian furniture and many works of art that, on a smaller scale, echo the motifs at St. Nicholas, such as a pair of images showing a Madonna with child and a peasant woman bearing a sheaf of wheat. Even if Vanka's genius cannot approach that of Michelangelo in his unrivaled Vatican frescoes, in both cases a single patron (a Renaissance pope, an immigrant priest) gave an artist free rein to turn a sanctuary into a vast canvas for a unique artistic and spiritual vision. "It's like we're the Sistine Chapel of Pittsburgh," said the Rev. Daniel Whalen, administrator at St. Nicholas, who often visited the art treasures of Rome's churches while studying there. "It's different art, it's a different presentation, but there isn't really anything around here like this." Even among less than devout artists, he said, "Somehow God brings that stuff out of those guys." UPDATE: In April 2016, Veronica Gandy pleaded guilty to to misdemeanors for endangering the welfare of children, partner assault and violating an order of protection as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. She received a one year fully suspended jail sentence and various fines. *** A Miller Creek woman accused of assaulting her partner and her partner's daughter has been jailed on $15,000 bail. Veronica Abbie Gandy, 25, appeared in Missoula County Justice Court on Friday, charged with felony assault on a minor, as well as misdemeanor partner or family member assault and violating an order of protection. Sheriff's deputies responded to report of a disturbance at a residence on Audrey Court in Miller Creek on Thursday. The woman who reported the incident said her partner, Gandy, was yelling at her and her 4-year-old daughter after the couple got into an argument, according to an affidavit. When the woman told Gandy to stop yelling at the girl, Gandy allegedly punched her partner in the head several times. When her partner tried to leave the room, Gandy allegedly began to punch the girl as well. Gandy and her partner began to fight, and the woman said Gandy "choked" her at a one point, the affidavit stated. When the woman was able to get away and call 911, she said she heard Gandy leave with her own daughter, who also had been present. When Gandy was found, she told law enforcement the incident wasn't a big deal, saying her partner hit her and yelled at her so she left, the affidavit stated. After she was arrested and served with an order of protection not to contact her partner, Gandy allegedly called her. She later said she didn't know what number she was calling, despite the order of protection specifically stating she was not allowed to call that number. In court Friday, Justice of the Peace Marie Andersen set Gandy's bail at $15,000 and allowed her to be screened for pretrial supervision. If released, she is not to return to the home where the alleged offense occurred or contact either of the alleged victims, and she will be monitored for alcohol and methamphetamine and tracked by GPS. Gandy said she recently moved to Missoula from Colorado. Missoula County Attorney Kirsten Pabst announced Wednesday that Caressa Hardy, a 51-year-old arrested earlier this week in Frenchtown, has been charged with two counts of deliberate homicide for the alleged murders of Thomas Korjack and Robert Orozco. Pabst said the killings occurred in March 2013 at Korjack and Orozcos home in Frenchtown, and that evidence suggests a financial motive for the alleged homicides. Following the deaths of Korjack and Orozco, multiple transactions were made on Korjack's financial accounts, investigators found. The case has been investigated for more than a year by the Missoula County Sheriffs Office, Missoula Police Department and the FBI. Korjack and Orozcos bodies have not been found. Officers, including the FBIs national forensic evidence team, were at the house on Pond Road where the alleged murders are believed to have happened. Missoula County Sheriff T.J. McDermott said cadaver dogs are being used at the scene, and he expects investigators will be there at least through the end of the week. Hardy was scheduled to make an initial appearance in Missoula County Justice Court on Wednesday afternoon. According to a court affidavit Pabst filed in the case, a woman who said she witnessed the killings reported them to police three years later in 2016. The woman said she was in a long-term relationship and had children with Hardy who was previously known by the name Glenn Dibley. One of their children who continued to live with Hardy after the alleged killings was found when officers arrested Hardy on Monday. The woman told police Hardy shot and killed Korjack and Orozco who lived with them at a house in Frenchtown, after Korjack and Hardy began arguing and Hardy thought she was going to be kicked out of the house, according to the affidavit. After the woman and Hardy moved to Wyoming from California, and before they came to Montana, the woman said that Hardy changed her name, began to dress like her and adopted a similar hairstyle. (The woman) said she thought Defendant actually wanted to be her, the court affidavit said. The woman told investigators that after Orozco and Korjack were killed, she was kept in the house for around a month. She said Hardy broke into the safe containing money and other items that Korjack owned, and that Hardy gutted the room where the two men were killed and burned everything in piles outside. Wet, warm conditions are putting many loggers out of the woods as early spring breakup closes roads in western Montana. The Flathead National Forest imposed road restrictions on the Hungry Horse, Tally Lake and Swan Lake ranger districts Friday, two weeks after Flathead County placed similar limits on most of its rural roads. The rules prevent heavy equipment, such as logging trucks, from churning the dirt surfaces into impassible ruts. This is a lot earlier than normal, Kalispell logging company owner James Stupak said Friday. Usually, we dont start seeing this until the middle of March. This week, we were out in the third week of February. Stupak said his two crews of 18 workers scrambled to finish logging projects this winter before the breakup got started. But even with the expedited schedule, Mother Nature provided more challenges. We had issues with a project in the Swan Valley, Stupak said. Last winter, we had 4 feet of snow, but this year we had a foot or 18 inches. When that started to disappear in February, we had to quit. Flathead Forest spokeswoman Janette Turk said the 2016 road restrictions were within the typical time frame according to U.S. Forest Service records. Ranger districts have the option of closing roads or placing weight limits on travel, depending on how wet conditions are. The Lolo National Forest was in similar status, according to forest environmental coordinator Chris Partyka. Our trend has been for warmer winters with rain instead of snow and frozen conditions, Partyka said. With some of our ongoing sales, theyve been hauling out at night or very early in the morning when ground conditions are frozen. Partyka said about 150 roads in the Lolo Forest are affected by spring breakup, but not all are closed or limited. He recommended checking with local ranger districts for the latest local access information. Montana Logging Association Director Keith Olson said forest workers across Montana were pulling back. Most guys have been shut down for some time in northwest Montana or are certainly moving that way, Olson said. It looks like this will be a long one for the guys. Hopefully, by mid-May theyll all be drifting back to work. But getting back in the woods faces other challenges, according to Stupak. Several areas where he has logging sales are closed in late spring to protect elk calving, loon nesting and grizzly bear activity. Its a fight every winter to keep going, Stupak said. Were seeing saturation rains in springtime, and then fire season shuts you down in summer. If I could factor a good nine months a year of work for my people, that would be great. Its getting harder every year to find that. Winters the time when you can really work, but we dont see winter much anymore. YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. According to the operative data of the Defense Army, during March 6-12 at the line of contact between the Karabakh-Azerbaijani opposing forces, the adversary fired more than 23000 shots towards Armenian positions with different caliber weapons, including howitzer cannons, 60 and 82-millimeter mortars, RPG-7 and AGS 17 grenade launchers. As Armenpress was informed by the press service of the NKR Ministry of Defense , Azerbaijani armed forces attempted sabotage penetration actions during the abovementioned period. Due to the actions of the frontline units of the Defense Army, the adversary sabotage units were spotted in time and thrown back to their initial positions while sustaining casualties. The Defense Army continues to control the operative situation. A 31-year-old Butte man who prosecutors say assaulted two of his stepchildren pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Thursday in Butte district court. Taron Thomas Kifer was arrested in December 2015 for allegedly throwing his 11-year-old stepson to the ground and kicking his ribs and grabbing and shaking his stepdaughter, 13, against a door, causing her head to hit a door. He then struck the girls face, according to a report she gave to police. Kifer was arrested Dec. 20, 2015, after a Butte-Silver Bow police officer interviewed the two minors along with twin 10-year-old siblings and their grandmother. The children said they were often home alone as their parents worked outside Butte. In a phone interview with the police officer, the grandmother, who lived out of state, said she was in fear for the childrens safety and that Kifer had a violent past. She reported her husband had recently spent six weeks with the family and witnessed several incidents of verbal abuse that concerned him, court documents state. The children were then taken into custody by the Montana Department of Family Services and transported to St. James Healthcare for medical evaluations. Tests showed the girl suffered no fractures from her alleged assault in December 2015; however, the boy suffered rib trauma after reportedly being kicked multiple times in late October 2015. During an interview with police, Kifer said that he came home the previous day and the children had not shoveled the snow, so he grounded them. He denied hitting his stepdaughter, documents state. Alcohol was detected on his breath; Kifer refused to be tested. Kifer has three prior convictions for partner or family member assault, according to court documents. In a late December interview with an investigator, the childrens mother said she and Kifer married in Idaho five years ago and moved to Montana, in part so that he could elude bounty hunters in the Yakima, Washington, area. She stated that she became aware of the abuse issues between Kifer and her children within the past year. When she tried to intercede on behalf of them, he would push her away and tell her to stay out it, documents state. She admitted to having an escape plan in the works for the children and herself. Judge Brad Newman set an omnibus hearing for April 7. Kifer is free on bond with bail conditions including that he have no contact with the victims. Anaconda police arrested a former state addiction treatment doctor Thursday night following a hit-and-run incident east of Anaconda, authorities said. Mark Jay Catalanello was found trying to hide in a culvert after he jumped from his truck at Highway 48 near the Warm Springs turn-off, said Anaconda Police Chief Tim Barkell. Meanwhile, the doctor, who is facing a drug possession charge out of Silver Bow County, failed to appear before the adjudication panel of the Montana Board of Medical Examiners on Friday morning. The board revoked his medical license, meaning he can no longer practice medicine in Montana. Anaconda law enforcement dispatchers received multiple calls starting at 5:51 p.m. Thursday stating that a black Chevy truck was involved in a two-vehicle collision near the intersection of Montana Highway 1 and Highway 43, Barkell said. The driver of the black Chevy truck, which turned out to be Catalanello, attempted to leave the scene of the crash. Witnesses followed the damaged black pickup truck which was sparking as it fled. A tire was left at scene, and the trucks axle was bent, according to Barkell. Barkell said Montana Highway Patrol officers located the truck, which eventually stopped, at which point Catalanello "jumped out and was caught on foot." Barkell said Catalanello was arrested and taken to a local hospital at 8:10 p.m. for a blood draw. Catalanello was booked in the Anaconda-Deer Lodge jail on charges of failing to stop at a stop sign; driving under the influence, second offense; obstructing a peace officer; and failing to report an accident. Catalanello has since been released on $1,940 bond. Catalanello, who has a long history of drug abuse and felony drug arrests, came under fire last fall when staff at the Montana Chemical Dependency Center reported erratic behavior they suspected stemmed from Catalanellos illegal drug use. The board temporarily suspended Catalanellos license in October at an emergency meeting. Catalanello worked for two state agencies at the time of his suspension, serving as a physician at the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs and medical director at MCDC in Butte. The state Department of Public Health and Human Services placed Catalanello on paid administrative leave following his Sept. 29 suspension, and his last day working for the state was Oct. 19, 2015. On Friday the Board of Medical Examiners unanimously voted in favor of a motion to permanently bar Catalanello from practicing medicine in Montana. The decision comes on the heels of Catalanellos arrest in Butte on March 4. On Tuesday he pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and possession of dangerous drugs. Catalanello was arrested on March 4 after he allegedly yelled and screamed at police and the owner and bartender at the IT Club in Rocker. Butte-Silver Bow Undersheriff George Skuletich told The Montana Standard on Monday Catalanello was belligerent, angry and made vulgar comments. Police responded to the Living Water Coffee Co. in Rocker earlier that evening where an employee reported that Catalanello yelled and screamed at her as he waited in the drive-through. Police located his 2016 Dodge Ram pickup truck at the nearby IT Club where they found him inside. A man named Ron Kelley spoke on Catalanellos behalf at Fridays adjudication hearing over the objection of the boards attorney, Mike Fanning. Kelley, who described himself as a friend of Catalanello, told the board via telephone that the doctor intended to be at Fridays hearing in Helena. Kelley said he had agreed to drive Catalanello to the hearing, but that didnt happen because Catalanello was involved in a severe car accident the night before. Last night, about 5 or 6 p.m., he was in a severe car accident, and I could not bring him over there to stand before you today, Kelley told the board. My assumption is that he is in jail, and probably has a DUI, but Im not sure of that. Kelley asked the board to consider a continued suspension of Catalanellos medical license rather than a full revocation, to give Catalanello time to treat his addiction. He has an addiction problem, as you all know, Kelley told the board. Hes totally aware of his problem. Hes an addiction doctor. Its severe, and he knows it. I think the state of Montana needs every doctor we can get. Fanning objected to Kelleys statement to the board, arguing that Kelley, who is not a lawyer, was inappropriately advocating on Catalanellos behalf. I dont necessarily mind (Kelley) coming forward and explaining Dr. Catalanellos absence, but he cant advocate, Fanning said. Fanning told the board that Catalanello requested a hearing to dispute the allegations against him but then failed to participate in the process in any meaningful way. Catalanello failed to show up at pre-trial hearing last month, which led to a cancellation of his trial set for Feb. 23. The hearing examiner in the case recommended the board indefinitely suspend Catalanellos license, but Fanning said his recommendation was for full revocation. Fanning told the board it could take whichever action it deemed appropriate. There was no discussion among the members of the adjudication panel on the motion to revoke Catalanellos license, and following a unanimous vote in favor, Catalanello is now barred from practicing medicine in Montana. Fanning told the board that Catalanello is not barred from reapplying for a medical license in Montana in the future. Attempts to locate Catalanello for comment have to date been unsuccessful. Pro-pool moves and movements in Butte arent silencing critics who question a $500,000 pledge of public funds before people vote on a proposal and say there are more pressing priorities. Chief Executive Matt Vincent, acting on a $500,000 pledge by Butte-based Town Pump, said this week the county could kick in $500,000 to match it and he would ask commissioners to approve that move in the next budget. Other private and public partners are expected to raise another $500,000 for the project. That combined $1.5 million would be enough to pay for a lazy river, slides and other bells and whistles, Vincent says, so property taxpayers would foot a $7.2 million bill for a basic pool and up to $350,000 in annual maintenance costs. People in Butte, including several commissioners, have applauded the pledges and support the county kicking in $500,000. The money would come from an old tax settlement reached with the Atlantic Richfield Co. after mines shut down in the early 1980s. But there are critics of the plan. To me a pledging contest means funds from individuals and corporations who want the pool, not $500,000 from government, said longtime resident Rich Penhaligen. Butte-Silver Bow shouldnt be able to just take our money to pay for a pool without a vote of the people, which is what they said they would do. Penhaligen caused a stir by raising those and other concerns before the councils Judiciary Committee this week. Despite that, the panel voted to advance a resolution for a $7.2 million pool bond issue to the full council. If commissioners approve it Wednesday, it will go on the June 7 primary ballot. Penhaligen said he hopes Butte gets an outdoor pool and praised Town Pump for their community support on this and other causes. But he said a people vote on a pool should come before the county pledges any public money, let alone $500,000 that might be needed for other things in future years. What are we going to say when the mines shut down again: Look what a nice pool we have? he told the Standard. He also questioned Vincent holding a big announcement on the pledges Tuesday as if the decision to put up $500,000 in county funds had already been made. Vincent said that he would ask commissioners to approve the expense, but it has already been figured into the lower bond figure. Commissioner Cindy Perdue-Dolan was the lone Judiciary Committee member who voted against the proposed ballot measure moving to the full council. My concern is pledging public funds before the public vote, Perdue-Dolan, a frequent critic of Vincent, said Friday. That is swaying public opinion before the vote is cast. I think its a political move, plain and simple. In late 2011, voters narrowly rejected a proposed $7.5 million bond for an outdoor pool, lazy river and various improvements to Stodden Park. Several people have posted objections to this plan on the Standards website, saying among other things that taxes already are too high and there are better uses including pressing infrastructure needs for the $500,000 in county money. BSB administration has been in a rush, like firemen to a four-alarm blaze, to get this approved to go on the ballot in June, posted James Shive. Commissioners should be asking a whole lot more questions before that happens and getting detailed, direct answers. Commissioner Bill Andersen said Friday he sees nothing wrong with tapping the ARCO settlement money for the project. But he is concerned about annual maintenance needs and costs for a pool and lazy river that will be open for only a limited number of weeks in the summer. The people are going to have a say but I think its a toss-up whether it passes, Andersen said. I think its 50-50. Vincent, who is seeking re-election this year, has said often over the past few years that Butte and its kids need an outdoor public pool. All other Montana cities in similar size or larger have one, he said, as do many cities smaller than Butte. Vincent reiterated Friday that the pledge from Town Pump and all the other pledges are contingent on voters approving a pool bond issue in June, and the $500,000 in county funds are contingent on the council approving that expense later this year. That doesnt mean he cant propose it now. It is always my job to bring initiatives to their consideration, he said. If taxpayers approve a $7.2 million bond issue but the council later rejects tapping the ARCO settlement fund for $500,000, it would nix the other pledges expected to total $1 million, Vincent said. I guess we could then just build a $7.2 million plain old pool, he said. BILLINGS Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is being criticized for piggybacking campaign events onto government business trips in his state airplane. At issue are a handful of campaign fundraisers branded as Women for Bullock events that capped business flights to Montana communities during the past month. Criticism of the flights surfaced on social media after it was mentioned in a Feb. 10 Associated Press report that Bullock, a Democrat, was unavailable for comment because he was in Billings making peanut butter sandwiches for the homeless and attending a campaign fundraiser. Bullock had flown to Billings for those events plus a TV interview and a meeting with a union official. Similar business trips capped by campaign fundraisers also took place in Bozeman and Missoula. "Gov. Bullocks abuse of taxpayer dollars is beyond the pale," said Shane Scanlon, Montana GOP spokesman. "He justifies these taxpayer-funded flights as attending to an official state event, but the main priority is attending these campaign fundraisers. The governor "should put in a full day's worth of work every now and then," Scanlon added. "It wouldn't hurt for him to drive the same roads the rest of us Montanans use with his campaign paying for the travel cost not living the high life flying on the taxpayers dime." On Wednesday, the criticism bubbled up on The Missoulian opinion page, where Rep. Brad Tschida, R-Missoula, accused Bullock of holding campaign events at taxpayer expense. Tschida said the cost of the Missoula trip was roughly $1,000. By car, Helena and Missoula are about 115 miles apart. A check with the State Commissioner of Political Practices office Wednesday produced no official complaint against Bullock. In an email, Commissioner Jonathan Motl said he suspected the policy requiring the governor to travel with security was part of any decision to use a government plane or vehicle and beyond normal analysis of public resource use. State law generally prohibits use of public resources for political purposes. Bullocks legal advisers said there was nothing wrong with the governors use of the plane. "Like the previous administration, Gov. Bullock uses the plane to serve the people of Montana in an efficient manner that adheres to the law," said Andy Huff, Bullocks chief legal counsel. Bullock spokesman Tim Crowe said the Missoula trip as well as trips to Bozeman and Billings, which included campaign events, were for official government business first and foremost. I can tell you that this practice of utilizing a state resource, the state airplane, for government business is why its there, Crowe said. If there are events that are subsequent to that, for the purpose of the trip, those are subsequent. Thats been a practice before Gov. Bullock for sure. Crowe said the Missoula trip involved an appearance at a funeral for a National Guard sergeant, a visit with a local Missoula businessman, and a meeting with Missoulas mayor about a bridge needing repair. The visit was capped with a Women for Bullock fundraiser organized by the Friends of Steve Bullock, a campaign committee. The Bozeman trip March 3 included an event with a women-in-business roundtable discussion group and a presentation about critical perspectives on leadership to honors students at Montana State University. At the end of the Bozeman trip, another Women for Bullock fundraiser took place. Invitations to the fundraisers in all three cities suggested contributions to Friends of Steve Bullock for $50 per guest, $300 per sponsor, $600 per co-host and $1,320 for patrons. Current criticism of the governors plane use is similar to concerns expressed by Republican lawmakers on the Joint General Government subcommittee in the 2015 Legislature. Rep. Ryan Osmundson, chairman of the subcommittee, said his interest was piqued by Bullocks use of the plane to fly from Helena to Butte. The two communities are 67 miles apart by car. The governors plane costs about $1,650 an hour to operate, Osmundson said. The subcommittee cut funding for the Beechcraft King Air plane and the pilots salary on a partisan vote. After looking at the governors flight records as well as the programs costs dating back to fiscal year 2010, lawmakers restored funding for the plane. They reasoned the plane was necessary for long trips. But the short flights aggravated some, including Tschida, author of the Missoulian op-ed. Tschida looked at a year of plane fights and found that out of 147 trips, 72 of the flights were for an hour or less. Bullock isnt the first governor to be criticized for his plane use. Democrats in the Legislature challenged the plane funding of Republican Gov. Stan Stephens in the early 1990s, but like Republicans in 2015, they dropped the issue. The governors chief of staff, Tracy Stone Manning, said The Billings Gazettes coverage of the governors plane use seemed like a hit piece, driven by Republican accusations. Stone Manning suggested The Gazette spend a few weeks researching the issue before publishing an article. On Feb. 17, The Gazette filed requests under the state's public information laws concerning Bullocks Feb. 10 flight to Billings. The request was for all written and recorded conversations between Gov. Bullock and/or his staff with representatives of School District 2 and the Billings Golden K Kiwanis regarding the governors Feb. 10, 2016, appearance at Riverside School in Billings. The public documents request was a first step in attempting to determine whether the official trip was planned before the campaign fundraiser. The Gazette also requested information about who was on the plane for the Feb. 10 flight. The Gazette also requested information about the governor's Feb. 16 trip to Missoula. Also, The Gazette requested the governors schedule, which is not available to the public without a request. Those requests have not yet been fulfilled. BILLINGS Medical marijuana supporters are pushing back on new restrictions to the program at a time when providers are closing down. On Thursday, the owners of Montana Advanced Caregivers held a barbeque at their south Billings location. Patients were stocking up on medical marijuana because the future of the business was uncertain, said co-owner Jason Smith. At the same time, Smith and his business partner, Rich Abromeit, needed to shed some of their own stock or risk holding an illegal amount once the law becomes fully enacted. On Feb. 25, the Montana Supreme Court upheld provisions of the Montana Marijuana Act, a 2011 bill that put greater limitations on the medical marijuana trade. The law restricts providers to three patients apiece, a provision which many in the business believe leads to closure. Montana Advanced Caregivers once boasted 400 patients. On Thursday, those at the shop wondered where they would turn to for marijuana. They feel abandoned, which is an issue from a physicians standpoint, said Dr. Michael Uphues, a Billings doctor of osteopathy and family practitioner who has worked with medical marijuana patients for 10 years. Concern for patients The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, which runs the medical marijuana program, shares that concern. In response to questions about the departments transition under the new law, a spokesman replied with a statement. DPHHS is concerned for the thousands of patients with conditions like cancer, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy who have been prescribed medical marijuana by a licensed physician and who could find themselves suddenly without an effective treatment as a result of the Supreme Court ruling, the statement said. There are more than 13,000 registered cardholders in the medical marijuana program and 476 providers in the state. In its statement, the health department said that it will work on a regulatory transition plan that protects these patients to the greatest extent possible. One of those patients is 55-year-old Helen Wilson. She said she has serious arthritis that limits her mobility. She also has allergies to many of the traditional prescription medicines and said that marijuana has been the only thing thats worked. Wilson said that she still plans to get marijuana if Montana Advanced Caregivers shuts down. Black market, like everybody else, she said. What choice do I got? The Supreme Court decision was a blow to the Montana Cannabis Industry Association, the Bozeman-based organization that brought the original lawsuit to battle the rollback law. After the decision, longtime board member Bob Devine stepped in as the organizations president. He said that they will be filing a motion for the Supreme Court requesting a transition period for businesses and patients. He said the motion will buy them at least an additional two weeks. "What we're trying to do is prevent undue harm to the patients in Montana," Devine said. He said that the motion would include a supporting affidavit from the state health department. Upholding law The Montana Attorney Generals Office argued in favor of the rollback law in the Supreme Court case. After the court decision, Attorney General Tim Fox applauded the move. I am grateful to the justices for upholding the rule of law and recognizing that its the legislatures rightful purview to set state policy on this important issue, Fox said in a statement. The 2011 law was a response to abuses of the medical marijuana program that came during a dramatic increase in the number of registered cardholders. There were concerns that people with minor medical ailments were getting medical marijuana for recreational use. Some physicians required only a teleconference to make a recommendation for the drug. The Montana supreme court voted to enact the law after a lengthy legal battle, but some worry that it will be too restrictive to patient access. Abromeit of Montana Advanced Caregivers said that for many of them, his business is the only way to safely access marijuana. What we do is patient care, he said. Its not the recreational market. Expanding access Outside of the courts, the Montana marijuana debate could be settled through ballot initiatives, which is how the medical program was first approved in 2004. The Montana Cannabis Industry Association recently introduced one of their own, which is aimed at expanding access to medical marijuana. The initiative was submitted on Feb. 29 and is being reviewed by the state. Two other ballot initiative campaigns have been gathering signatures for months. One, sponsored by a Billings businessman, will look to repeal medical marijuana provisions and align the drug with federal law. The other, sponsored by a Glendive man, aims to legalize recreational use. The two sides have gone back and forth online and in public on the issue. Whether by judge or by voter, the battle over marijuana isnt over. For Abromeit and Smith, its been a roller coaster ride. The viability of their business can change in a day following a court decision. But they said that a three-person limit under the new law will shut them down. All these people who built this whole thing, Abromeit said. Its definitely a community service. YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. British-born keyboardist Keith Emerson of the 1970's progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer died from a self-inflicted single gunshot to his head, police said on March 11. He was 71. Armenpress informs citing Reuters. Emerson's body was found by local police at his Santa Monica, California, home in the early hours of March 11. Police have preliminarily ruled the death a potential suicide, Santa Monica police spokesman Sergeant Rudy Camarena told Reuters. Born in 1944 in the Yorkshire village of Todmorden, Emerson was a keyboardist for a number of groups in the 1960's, including The Nice. But he was best known as a founding member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, a so-called "super group" of well-known rock musicians formed in 1970. In addition to Emerson, the band included bassist Greg Lake, formerly of King Crimson, and drummer and percussionist Carl Palmer, a veteran of several famous English bands. "Keith was a gentle soul whose love for music and passion for his performance as a keyboard player will remain unmatched for many years to come," said Palmer on his website. "He was a pioneer and an innovator whose musical genius touched all of us in the worlds of rock, classical and jazz." The band posted about Emerson's passing on Facebook, asking "that the family's privacy and grief be respected." The band released nine studio albums during the 1970's, including its debut self-titled album and its follow-up "Tarkus," released in 1971. The latter reached the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart, according to Billboard.com. Emerson later worked as a solo artist and wrote an autobiography, "Pictures of an Exhibitionist," in 2004. Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi [] YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. Six Iranian citizens imprisoned in Armenia were transferred to Iran on Saturday in accordance with the two countries' prisoner extradition agreement. Armenpress informs Iranian IRNA news agency informs about this. The Iranian Judiciary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Iran's Embassy in Yerevan held talks with concerned Armenian officials to make possible this transfer that leads to completion of the convicts' prison terms in Iran. The Iranian prisoners were delivered to Iranian judicial officials on Friday at Nurdooz Border in East Azarbaijan province's Jolfa City. The Iranian convicts had been sentenced on charges of narcotic drugs trafficking in Armenia. Armenia have already extradited 19 Iranian prisoners to Iran during this Iranian calendar year (started March 20, 2015) but 32 others are still in Armenia jails. Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes [] YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. A commemoration ceremony was held at the Armenian Genocide victims square in the town of Lille in France. The event was attended by the President of the French National Assembly Claude Bartolone and the Mayor of Lille, Armenpress reports citing the Facebook page of the Armenian Embassy in France. The French National Council adopted a bill recognizing the Armenian Genocide of 1915 on May 29, 1988. On November 7, 2000, the French Senate voted in favor of adoption of the resolution. On 18 October 2001, the French National Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. In 2006, a bill was initiated to criminalize the rejection of the Armenian Genocide, which is currently under development to meet the demands of the French Constitutional Court. YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. On March 11, the Delegation led by the Head of Armenia-Korea Parliamentary Friendship Group of the RA National Assembly Samvel Farmanyan visited the Korea International Cooperation Agency of (KOICA). The deputies took a tour in the KOICA, getting acquainted with its history and activities. Armenpress was informed about this from the Public Relations and Media Department of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia. Afterwards the members of the Armenian NA Delegation met with the KOICA Vice President on Programmes and Regional Cooperation Choi Sungho. Welcoming the guests, Mr Sungho Choi noted that it was a great honor for them to host the Delegation of the Armenian National Assembly and expressed hope that the visit would be favorable for the strengthening of Armenia-Korea cooperation. In his word Samvel Farmanyan noted that he is greatly impressed by the social-economic development and democratization experience of Korea, and the fact that Korea has reached high level of economic development. The members of the Armenian Delegation expressed their deep gratitude to the KOICA for the great assistance allocated to the Armenian NA, which, according to the deputies, has been purposeful and gives opportunity to technically reequip the Session Hall of the National Assembly. During the meeting an agreement was reached to continue the cooperation between the Armenian parliament and the KOICA. On March 12, the Delegation led by Samvel Farmanyan visited Sogang University, met with University Professor Lee, as well as with the Armenian students studying in Korea. Thousands came to pay their respects to former First Lady Nancy Reagan at her funeral on Friday. Reagan was buried next to her husband, President Ronald Reagan, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Nancy Reagan died Sunday at 94 on March 6 at her home in Bel-Air, Calif., of congestive heart failure. Her marriage lasted 52 years until his death in 2004. A former actress, she was Reagan's closest adviser and fierce protector on his journey from actor to governor of California to president of the United States. She rushed to his side after he was shot in 1981 by a would-be assassin, and later endured his nearly decade-long battle with Alzheimer's disease. In recent years she broke with fellow Republicans in backing stem cell research as a way to possibly find a cure for Alzheimer's. Data curated by InsideGov Condolences Gov. Rick Scott released a statement about Nancy Reagan's death. "Ann and I join the nation in mourning the loss of Nancy Reagan, former First Lady of the United States and dedicated wife to the late President Ronald Reagan," Gov. Scott said. "Throughout her life, Nancy's incredible commitment to her country and her family did not falter, and she will continue to inspire all of us to live bravely and selflessly. Nancy Reagan made a monumental impact on our nation and I know her legacy will live on, just like her husband's legacy has. Ann and I send our thoughts and prayers to the Reagan family and all those who knew her." Scott was not alone in expressing his condolences. "I was privileged on several occasions to spend time with her," former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez said. "Probably the longest time was while I was governor, and this was 1987 when the Pope visited Florida. Had mass down in Miami." YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. President Serzh Sargsyan will pay an official visit to the Hellenic Republic on March 14-15. The Armenian President will hold meetings with top Greek officials, as well as with the representatives of the Armenian community and the traditional Armenian parties (ARF, SDHP, and ADLP). Signing ceremony of a number of documents aimed at deepening Armenian-Greek bilateral relations in a number of spheres is planned. Afterwards, the President of Armenia and the Prime Minister of Greece will brief the results of the talks for media. As Armenpress was informed from the Department of Public Relations and Mass Media of Republic of Armenia Presidents Office, in the sidelines of the visit Serzh Sargsyan will attend the solemn opening ceremony of the exhibition entitled Armenia: Spirit of Ararat at Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens, accompanied by the President of Greece. On March 15, President Sargsyan will pay a visit to Cyprus, where he will hold meetings with the President, head of the parliament, representatives of the Armenian community, as well as with the Archbishop of All Cyprus. The Presidents of Armenia and Cyprus will brief the results of the meetings in a joint press conference, after signing a range of documents aimed at deepening bilateral cooperation. Serzh Sargsyan will also visit the University of Cyprus, where he will meet with the students and professors of the university, will deliver a speech and will answer the questions of the present. On March 16 the President of Armenia will leave for Brussels to attend the regular summit of the European People's Party. As owner of this blog, I bear no responsibility to what other contributors/bloggers may post. I encourage all to speak freely without indulging in libel or defamatory content. Anyone who feels offended by any posting can email me and I will remove the offending article if appropriate. Contact me at redbeansg@yahoo.com redbean GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Fifteen tons of Snickers chocolate bars have met a sticky end in Gaza. Islamic Hamas authorities hurled boxes of the peanut chocolate candy bar into a bomb crater Thursday, dousing them with diesel and lighting them in a crackling bonfire following a company recall. Confectionary giant Mars recalled sweets from its Netherlands factory last month after a small piece of red plastic was found in a Snickers bar. Three children from a nearby Bedouin encampment managed to snatch some of the chocolate bars before they melted away. It took more than two years for Kate Rubins, a graduate of Napas Vintage High School, to train for the NASA astronaut corps, then 2 years more to ready herself for a four-month mission aboard the International Space Station. But amid the flight training and water-tank drills and wintertime survival exercises, one piece of advice has stood out to the Napa native preparing to reach for the stars. My best advice is keep your eyes open, have fun and enjoy the time you have in space, because the time goes by very fast, said Anatoly Ivanishin, the Russian cosmonaut who will be one of Rubins two crewmates aboard the Soyuz spacecraft scheduled to boost them into earth orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on the afternoon of June 21. Nearing the fulfillment of her childhood dream of spaceflight, the 37-year-old Rubins, a flight engineer on the upcoming mission, found those words easy to follow. I think theres not too many things in the day in the life of a space station that arent absolutely amazing, because of the fact that you are in freefall the entire time and the laws of physics have changed. Im looking forward to seeing all of that, she said Wednesday during a NASA news conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston with mission commander Ivanishin the only one with previous spaceflight experience and flight engineer Takuya Onishi of Japan. Rubins, Ivanishin and Onishi are scheduled to spend 131 days aboard the jointly U.S.- and Russian-operated outpost some 268 miles above the Earth, completing more than 15 orbits a day before returning to Baikonur Oct. 30. From Houston, the astronauts will travel to Star City outside Moscow for final launch and landing training, then head to Baikonur two weeks before launch. Growing up in Napa, Rubins had her interest in space fired by childhood stargazing events and a weeklong stay at the NASA Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama while in middle school. After graduating from Vintage High School in 1996, she studied molecular biology at UC San Diego and became a virologist, studying the genetics of viruses responsible for Ebola, smallpox and AIDS for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an infectious disease laboratory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite her longstanding research career, Rubins never lost her passion for space travel, and joined more than 3,500 people who applied to join the ranks of NASA astronauts in 2008. She was selected with 13 others after a yearlong process, and began training for her space station mission several months before NASA announced the flight in February 2015. In addition to flight training, preparations for the three-person crew have included underwater spacewalks to simulate the microgravity of space, as well as operating the space stations cargo-grabbing robotic arm and landing on water and land. The training for the Soyuz vehicle was quite tough, because I needed to study like a college student, recalled Onishi. I stayed up late almost every day, up to 2 a.m., studying Soyuz systems and going to classes in the daytime and coming back to study again. Rubins, Ivanishin and Onishi will supervise more than 250 experiments aboard the station to study the effects of weightlessness, including projects seeking ways to slow the weakening of bones, muscles and immune systems in the weightlessness of space. Those tests are intended to make possible safer human flight to Mars, a journey that would require several months each way across 92.9 million miles nearly the same distance separating the Earth from the Sun. Studies of human biology, on earth as well as in space, were a special interest to the former geneticist. Theres a lot of life science experiments that Im excited about, Rubins told reporters in Houston. Theres going to be some DNA sequencing experiments, a lot of experiments to look at the behavior of cells in space as well as bone loss and muscle loss that we can actually correlate with some diseases on earth. So Im looking forward to a pretty hefty research component. Mindful of the childhood opportunities that helped guide her into NASA, Rubins hopes to arrange a TV or Internet program from orbit for students at Napa schools, although details are yet to be worked out. But whatever form that outreach takes, she hopes her mission can offer proof that girls and young women or any young people with a talent for the sciences can follow their passion. Photo: TMZ Wow! It sounds like Dwight Yoakam has an extra special something to be thankful for this Christmas like the fact that he didn't die in a fiery plane crash. TMZ is reporting that while on the way from a private concert in Canada recently, the plane that Dwight was on caught fire while in the air. Okay, it didnt actually catch fire, but there was a lot of smoke and the pilot thought it was on fire, which was probably just as scary as if it had actually burst into flames. The pilot called in a mayday and landed safely at Van Nuys Airport in California. All nine passengers on board the twin-engine Hawker 800 jet were safe, but firefighters had cleared the runways and were on the scene just in case. Yikes. Can you imagine? Like what we're sharing? Keep up with all the fun by following NashvilleGab on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe to our feed and be sure to visit our mobile site for all your country music news on the go. If you have something you'd like to share, drop me a line at Shannon@NashvilleGab.com. From the sheer timeline, it would appear that the judiciary was waiting for the executive to prove before the legislature its commitment ... Question -- What is the goal of this website? Why do we share different sources of information that sometimes conflicts or might even be considered disinformation? Answer -- The primary goal of Nesaranews is to help all people become better truth-seekers in a real-time boots-on-the-ground fashion. This is for the purpose of learning to think critically, discovering the truth from withinnot just believing things blindly because it came from an "authority" or credible source. Instead of telling you what the truth is, we share information from many sources so that you can discern it for yourself. We focus on teaching you the tools to become your own authority on the truth, gaining self-mastery, sovereignty, and freedom in the process. We want each of you to become your own leaders and masters of personal discernment, and as such, all information should be vetted, analyzed and discerned at a personal level. We also encourage you to discuss your thoughts in the comments section of this site to engage in a group discernment process. "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle 11 Spiegel: German Foreign Minister and Defense Minister ask to allocate 2.2 billion for military aid to Kiev Deputy PM of Armenia and Head of Sharjah Heritage Institute discuss strengthening of Armenian-Emirati relations Biden allows participation in U.S. presidential election in 2024 Secretary of Security Council of Armenia and representatives of AIISA discuss security issues Kakhovka reservoir increases water discharges in case of possible destruction of HPP Pashinian's spouse: Yesterday at Elysee Palace I was received by dear Brigitte Macron At least 15 people killed in bus-truck collision in India Explosion at Uzbek Defense Ministry depot injures 16 people Armenian NA Speaker receives Iranian FM: Tehran opposes obstacles on border with friendly Armenia President Harutyunyan receives group of members of Union of Artsakh Reserve Officers NGO Newspaper: Armenia restores diplomatic ties with Hungary? China hit by 5.5 magnitude earthquake Armenian Defense Ministry denies Azerbaijani report on shelling, calling it disinformation Blinken: Moscow is not interested in stopping aggression against Ukraine Japan and U.S. will hold joint military exercises France withdraws from Energy Charter Treaty CNN: White House is in talks with Elon Musk to create satellite Internet service Starlink in Iran Baku outraged by Iran's statements and frightened by IRGC military exercises Who are main beneficiaries of 'Zangezur' corridor?: Another anonymous article by 'Haykakan Zhamanak' newspaper Ankara decides to stand up for Riyadh amid deteriorating relations between Saudi Arabia and U.S. French Foreign Minister considers it vital to keep lines of communication with Russia open Pentagon refuses to give details of conversation between Austin and Shoigu Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin: Head of Caucasus Muslims Department again made slanderous and false statements Erdogan denies using chemical weapons against Kurds and threatens those who dare to talk about it Saudi Arabia and China will strengthen their ties in energy sector Governor of Gegharkunik province receives representatives of OSCE fact-finding mission Penny Mordaunt runs for Prime Minister of Great Britain Sweden expects ratification of NATO membership application by Hungary and Turkey to be completed soon European Union will allocate 1.5 billion euros per month to Kiev in 2023 An Israeli-built flight school opened in Greece Russian Railways is negotiating with Azerbaijan and Iran to launch the Rasht-Astara route Overchuk: Construction of road through Meghri, whose sovereignty is not in question, depends on Armenia's position Armenian Defense Minister's working visit to India is over Hungary will not agree to limit prices for imported gas Iranian Foreign Minister: Iran considers Armenia one of most important transit countries Naribekyan participates in meeting of secretaries general of PACE parliaments Delegation from United Arab Emirates visits Armenia at invitation of head of MONKS: Two agreements signed Dollar, euro drop in Armenia Iran consul general in Armenias Kapan: We do not accept any change of borders Baza: Mobile military registration and enlistment offices will be removed on Russian-Georgian border Iranian Consul: Countries of region do not need presence of foreign armed forces Armenia FM: Iran consulate general in Kapan will be important for regional security Iranian Consul General advises Kapan residents not to worry anymore: Iran is here for Armenian people FM reaffirms Armenia plan to open consulate general in Irans Tabriz Turkey to open consulate in occupied Armenian Shushi city of Artsakh Turkish Ministry of Finance: Ankara can buy Russian oil without Western funding Armenia Security Council chief briefs European Parliament rapporteur on recent Azerbaijan military aggression British bookmakers name favorite for post of prime minister Erdogan: Armenia-Azerbaijan relations progress will contribute to Armenia-Turkey relations normalization Iranian Consulate General opens in Kapan Erdogan: Turkey is looking for alternative to American F-16 fighters Iran consul general: We are here for Armenian people Turkey FM slams OSCE decision to send needs assessment mission to Armenia Peskov reacts to Erdogan's words about Putin's softening on Ukraine negotiations European Parliament rapporteur on Armenia visits Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan European Parliament rapporteur on Armenia to legislature speaker: Attack was from Azerbaijan, naturally Armenia President to EEU PMs: We will manage to take another confident step by respecting mutual interests EUSR Toivo Klaars exclusive interview with NEWS.am on EU Monitoring mission,Nagorno Karabakh future and violence videos Explosions rock Ukraines Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia President meets with newly formed Artsakh Public Council members Armenia PM: We need understanding in price horizon, at least in medium term Lawyer: 20 of fallen solders parents detained from Yerevan military pantheon are recognized as injured party PM: Armenia trade with other EEU countries increased by 74% France region to provide 300,000 to Armenias Syunik Province affected by Azerbaijan military aggression Eurasian Intergovernmental Council extended meeting underway in Yerevan MOD: Armenia did not fire at Azerbaijan positions, vehicle MPs in Strasbourg, present threatening dangers: Armenia has powerful support in European Parliament Years first snow falls in Armenias Shirak Province World oil prices on the rise Newspaper: Russia dismisses Armenia PM's news on Karabakh Russia PM in Yerevan, to discuss with EEU colleagues single oil, natural gas markets formation Newspaper: Why is Iran in hurry to open consulate in Armenias Syunik Province? France, Spain, Portugal agree to build Barcelona-Marseille natural gas pipeline Admiral: U.S. should now prepare for Chinese 'invasion' of Taiwan Harutyunyan: I cannot imagine Artsakh's future without presence of Russia Harutyunyan: Without questioning path of our independence, we must meet with Baku Prime Minister of Finland does not think that Hungary and Turkey will block country's application for NATO membership Iranian FM: U.S. made hasty statements in connection with protests Former Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim involved in car accident in Karabakh Arayik Harutyunyan: Artsakh people's right to self-determination is non-negotiable Iranian MFA calls it important to form platform with Armenia and India on North-South corridor Details of EU monitoring mission in Armenia are known Foreign Ministry: It seems Ankara is more interested in opening corridor through Armenia than Azerbaijan Mirzoyan: Unexpected third countries support Azerbaijani interpretation of road to Nakhchivan Foreign Ministry: Armenia, Iran and Bulgaria initial agreement on creation of Persian Gulf-Black Sea corridor Israeli Defense Minister to visit Ankara Armenian Foreign Minister names main obstacle to solving problems with Azerbaijan Erdogan once again raises issue of so-called 'Zangezur corridor' Armenian and Iranian FMs to open Iranian Consulate General in Syunik province tomorrow Abdollahian: Aliyev assured that he does not want border changes, Iran will prevent implementation of such idea Iranian Foreign Minister in Yerevan supports '3+3' platform Iranian Foreign Minister recalls Tehran's 'red lines' in regional issues Mirzoyan: We highly appreciate Iran's principled position regarding territorial integrity of Armenia UK imposes sanctions against Iran for alleged delivery of drones to Russia Yerevan hosts meeting of Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in narrow composition Armenian and Iranian Foreign Ministers meet in Yerevan in extended format Charles Michel: EU energy deal possible, but difficult Erdogan says Baku should demand 'compensation' from Yerevan Pashinyan: EEU mechanisms are of great help, trade turnover between Armenia and Belarus has doubled Yair Lapid: Russia-Iran relations are serious problem for Ukraine, Europe, and whole world STEPANAKERT, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan suspended its pavilion activities at the international tourism exhibition ITB-Berlin protesting the participation of the Republic of Artsakh. As "Armenpress" was informed by the official website of the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Artsakh, posters were installed on Azerbaijan's pavilion, marking the displeasure in regard to the participation of Artsakh. At the same time, many Azerbaijanis with state flags surrounded the pavilion of Artsakh, in an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt their work. Azerbaijani demonstrators attempted many provocative actions around the pavilion, trying to damage it. However, the participants of Armenia gathered around the Artsakh pavillion at the exhibition hall in order to support their safe and peaceful work. Shortly after, ignoring the demonstrators resistance the security service of the exhibition removed them from the hall. After this, the Artsakh pavilion resumed its work effectively. As always, Azerbaijan's actions, being an original advertising campaign for Artsakh ,raised even more interest among participants and visitors in the Artsakh pavilion As reported earlier, the Artsakh delegation would represent NKR in a pavilion at the 2016 IT Berlin Tourism Fair from March 9 -13. From the very beginning of the exhibition the Artsakh pavilion aroused great interest among visitors. ITB Berlin is the largest tourism exhibition in Europe, which hosts nearly two hundred thousand visitors from 185 countries around the world. The project is also important in terms of establishing direct bilateral relations, as it brings together leading companies and professionals of the tourism sector and the participation of Artsakh is of great importance for the tourism development. YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Grand Master Levon Aronian played draw with Indian chess player Viswanathan Anand. Armenpress reports the players agreed to a draw on the 31st move. Levon Aronians game with Dutch Anish Giri also ended in a draw. The Armenian chess player has one point, Viswanathan Anand has 1.5 points. YEREVAN. Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan today received female heads of Armenian communities and members of city councils. At the meeting, Abrahamyan highly appreciated the role of women in the countrys political, economic and social life, the Government press-service reports. The PM attached importance to the involvement of women in different areas, including local self-government bodies, as well as consistent growth of womens role. Our steps will be aimed at consistently raising your role and increasing your involvement in our countrys political and economic life so that you can be more active in different areas. Our support in that issue will be apparent, Abrahamyan stressed. Following this, the PM also responded to a number of questions of female heads of Armenian communities and members of city councils, which related to the self-government bodies activity, problems in provinces, activities planned and implemented in that direction, as well as increase of womens role in local self-government bodies, etc. The participants exchanged ideas on the issues raised. PM Abrahamyan attached importance to the proportional territorial development, noting that the executive body is making consistent steps in that direction, trying to gradually solve the different problems in provinces through various programs. YEREVAN. - President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan will pay an official visit to Greece on March 14-15. The President will have meetings with the supreme Greek leadership, as well as representatives of the Armenian community and traditional parties (Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (ADL), Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP) which are part of it. The ceremony of signing a number of documents on deepening of Armenian-Greek bilateral ties and developing of cooperation in a range of areas is scheduled to be held in Athens. Following this, the Armenian President and Greek PM will sum up the results of bilateral talks at the meeting with media representatives. On the sidelines of his visit, Sargsyan along with his Greek counterpart will attend the grand opening of the exhibition entitled Armenia: Spirit of Ararat at Athens Byzantine and Christian museum. On March 15, President Sargsyan will head for Cyprus, where he will also have meetings with the countrys president, parliament speaker, as well as local Armenian community and Archbishop of All Cyprus. The Armenian and Cyprus presidents will sum up the results of the visit at a joint press-conference following the signing of documents on deepening of mutual cooperation. President Sargsyan will also visit the Cyprus University, where he will have a meeting with the university students and faculty. Apart from this, the President will make an address and respond to the participants questions. On March 16, President Sargsyan will leave for Brussels to attend the subsequent summit of the European People's Party (EPP). YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. Director of Armenpress Armenian news agency Aram Ananyan met with managing Director of IRNA Iranian news agency Mohammad Khodadadi in Tehran. Issues referring to the prospects of cooperation between the two state agencies were discussed at the meeting. The key aspects where the two news agencies are capable to cooperate were outlined. Do you know that one in five college students will be sexually assaulted during their academic career? On July 7, 2015, Gov. Cuomo signed into legislation the Enough is Enough Law. This law sets clear and effective policies for colleges to combat sexual assault on campus. The mission of the Enough is Enough campaign, Cuomo said, is to take a stand to combat the culture of sexual violence in higher education. This is a call to action for everyone who believes students should be protected by their college or university, and New York should be a leader in the fight against sexual violence on college campuses The new law also encourages that supportive services be made available for students who have been victims of sexual assault, rape, domestic violence and other violent crimes. To assist with this initiative, the state has provided funding for local rape crisis centers to partner with colleges so that services are provided by trained professionals. The Sexual Assault Victims Advocacy Resource was a recipient. SAVAR has been working with Cayuga Community College since last summer to establish a satellite on campus. Thanks to the determination of CCC Student Engagement Director Jerimy Blowers, SAVAR will have an educator/advocate at the college by April 1. Tracy Bozeat-Cook will be on campus part-time to begin working with student groups to offer education, advocacy and linkage to vital services as needed. Tracy will be available Mondays and Tuesdays in the Student Engagement Suite. Cayuga/Seneca Community Action Agencys Domestic Violence Program will also have a representative available part-time on campus to provide services and information. The DV advocate will collaborate with SAVAR and the college on prevention programs and events. The partnership between CCC, SAVAR and CSCAA highlights the commitment of Cayuga Community College to create a safe and respectful learning environment. We are proud to partner with them and CSCAA to assist in making this happen! For further information on this campus initiative, or to schedule education programs within your community, classroom or place of employment, please contact Connie Smith, education coordinator, at (315) 253-9795 ext. 312 or Tracy Bozeat-Cook at (315) 253-9795 ext. 311. We look forward to working with you! 23:14 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed today to retaliate against the Islamic State group after it launched a chemical attack on a town near Kirkuk. The suspected mustard gas attack on Taza that left a three-year-old girl dead "will not go unpunished", the premier said in a statement. A large number of rockets were fired at Taza on Wednesday from the nearby village of Bashir, which is held by the jihadists. Intelligence experts are still analysing samples, but local officials believe mustard agent was used in the attack on Taza, which lies just south of the city of Kirkuk and is around 220 kilometres north of Baghdad. Stanford students learn how to explain science The new Notation in Science Communication program offers students a way to develop their ability to share technical information with a variety of audiences, from prospective employers to the general public. Through coursework, advising and reflection, students learn ways to convey complicated ideas leading to a better understanding of the material for themselves and for their audience. When Laurie Rumker began writing her honors thesis at Stanford, she remembered the advice two professors had given her: One encouraged her to use a storytelling approach in writing; another suggested that she imagine explaining her research to her grandmother. Through the university's new Notation in Science Communication (NSC) program, Rumker, now a master's student in biomedical informatics at Stanford School of Medicine, has developed strategies and skills for achieving both aims in the written and spoken word. L.A. Cicero In the portfolio preparation course for the Notation in Science Communication, human biology major Keetan Rutledge plans for the artifacts he will include to demonstrate his ability to reach technical and non-technical audiences. The NSC program offers students a new way to develop their ability to share technical information and explain science in clear and compelling ways to a variety of audiences, including people within their academic disciplines, prospective employers, government agencies, journalists and the general public. And grandmothers. Rumker, who is concurrently earning a bachelor's degree in human biology at Stanford, said she pictured herself sitting next to her grandmother at a cozy kitchen table while writing her honors thesis, "Before and After the Flood: Stability and Resilience of the Human Gut Microbiota." "My Grandma Agnes is a careful listener who is unafraid to call out her children or grandchildren for saying something unclear or uninteresting," she said. "She would be the perfect sounding board for the kind of accessible and engaging prose I was striving to write." Students accepted into the NSC program can earn a special designation on their official transcript that says, "Earned Notation in Science Communication." The first cohort of students to earn that designation 14 students graduated in June 2015. Adam Banks, faculty director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric, said the NSC program helps students understand that the "messiness" of human life politics, social priorities, funding abilities, government policies affects the science and technology landscape. "You can have all the science or engineering in the world, but if you can't convey how a product or a cure or an innovation meets a compelling human need, you won't be successful," said Banks, a professor of education who joined Stanford six months ago. The program includes coursework, advising and reflection, and, as a capstone project, an electronic portfolio, or ePortfolio. Each student creates an ePortfolio using "artifacts" that demonstrate an ability to reach technical and non-technical audiences. Artifacts have included research papers, podcasts, videos, slide shows, posters and honors theses. One student described volunteering at the Pacific Free Clinic, which is run by Stanford School of Medicine. Another reflected on participating in a national competition to build a low-cost, solar-powered home. Each portfolio includes a cover letter that explains how the artifacts work together to tell a story about the student's skills as a science communicator, about his or her journey through the program, or some other narrative they have decided to highlight. In addition, students write a reflection for each artifact in their portfolio. Jennifer Stonaker, the coordinator of the NSC program, said producing an ePortfolio is a powerful experience for students, because the exercise helps them form a clear idea of who they are as a student and as a science communicator. "By the end of the program, we find that the students are very articulate in describing what they've done, what their goals are, and what they want to do afterward," said Stonaker, who has taught an NSC podcasting course. "It's quite impressive." Stonaker, who has a PhD in plant biology and genetics, said the portfolios themselves are beautiful. "It's amazing to see what kind of work these students do," she said. Aspiring science communicators An interest in public health issues propelled Martine Madill, a senior majoring in psychology, to pursue a notation in science communication. "There is a lot of exciting health and medical research happening around the world much of it on this campus and yet it means little if this information can't be transmitted to the general public in a way that's useful to them," she said. One of the artifacts in Madill's portfolio will be a research paper she wrote on the effects of Medicaid expansion on the Stanford Pediatric Emergency Department. L.A. Cicero Carolina Downie, a senior majoring in biology, said the program has taught her to be more thoughtful about every aspect of her writing from the main idea she wants to convey and how word choices could influence a reader's understanding. Carolina Downie, a senior majoring in biology, said the program has taught her to be more thoughtful about every aspect of her writing her audience, the main idea she wants to convey and how word choices or phrasing could influence a reader's understanding. "Often we discuss those things in the context of presenting scientific information to an uniformed or non-expert reader, but I'm in the process of writing my biology honors thesis right now, and because research topics and techniques are often so specialized, all of these things hold true, even when communicating to an audience that understands general biology," said Downie, a member of the Seung Kim Laboratory at Stanford Medical School. "The program has also forced me to think about all the different ways I can say the same thing modulating for different audiences and understanding levels, and the amount of time or the context in which you will be presenting something which is a pretty useful skill to have in all disciplines." One of the artifacts in Downie's portfolio will be a paper she wrote for an NSC class, titled "When Mistakes Are Made: The Rhetoric of Retraction." Nick Troccoli, a senior majoring in computer science, said he was attracted to the program because he believes that conversations about the ethical, philosophical and societal issues surrounding technology are just as important as the technology itself. "All of those conversations from the ethics of self-driving cars to whether machines can be conscious, and what consciousness means require the ability to communicate my technical knowledge in a non-technical way," he said. Troccoli said he has learned to keep his writing simple and to focus on the audience. "Being able to convey complicated ideas in simple terms indicates a much better understanding of the material on the author's part, and the reader is able to learn more as well," he said. "I've tried to take this idea and apply it to all of my writing, from a paper on a significant historical computer failure for my computer ethics class, to my opening statement for a mock climate conference." One of the artifacts in Troccoli's portfolio will be a slide show he used to teach a group of middle and high school students how to think and solve problems like computer scientists, by breaking down complex tasks into smaller steps. To illustrate, he paired up the students and asked one to teach the other how to walk. Fun and laughter ensued. "This class embodied many skills I learned in the notation program," he said. "I communicated technical knowledge to a nontechnical audience, and I came up with creative ways to convey information that challenged the students, as well as myself, to more deeply understand the material." Earning a notation in science communication Currently, 59 undergraduates are enrolled in the NSC program, which the Program in Writing and Rhetoric launched in the 2013-14 academic year. The majority are biology and engineering majors. The program has attracted a growing number of students majoring in computer science and Earth systems, along with a few students studying math, physics, psychology, symbolic systems, and science, technology and society. To earn the notation, students accepted into the NSC program complete Introduction to Science Communication and two advanced science communication courses. This year's advanced science communication courses include Technology and Human Values, Design Thinking and Science Communication and Communicating Climate Change: Navigating the Stories from the Frontlines. In addition, NSC students take one course outside the program that is focused on science communication. Applications for next year's Notation in Science Communication program will open at 9 a.m. on April 8. The deadline is April 22. Priority will be given to freshmen and sophomores. With jewellers across the country on strike sinch March 2 on imposition of excise tax on jewellery, the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) on Friday urged the central government to withdraw the measure. The apex body of the gems and jewellery industry which presently represents over 6,000 exporters in the sector, said the imposition of one percent excise duty on jewellery (other than plain silver jewellery) imposed in the union budget 2016-17 is not in the industry's interest. "We strongly urge the finance minister to reconsider the withdrawal of levy of excise on jewellery products. The imposition of excise would severely impact jewellery production in India resulting in loss of employment to the uneducated but skilled jewellery workers," said GJEPC chairman Praveenshankar Pandya at a press conference here. "Jewellery in the country is largely produced by the SMEs and they are not equipped to follow the rigid compliance of excise norms.. "We morally support the stand taken by GJF and other industry associations but we do not want to go on strike as a protest against this announcement as we believe in engaging with the Union government with constructive dialogue to persuade them to repeal the same," he added. Meanwhile, the GJEPC will host the 'India Gem & Jewellery Awards (IGJA)' 2015 that recognises and rewards star performers of the Indian gem and jewellery sector here on Saturday. Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje are expected to attend. A total of 32 nomination awards and 5 felicitation awards will be given away at GJEPC-IGJA 2015. --Indo-Asian News Service as/vd ( 276 Words) 2016-03-11-22:13:33 (IANS) New Delhi, Mar 12 (ANI-NewsVoir): The British Council in collaboration with Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune hosted three day Teacher Training workshop on STEM, from March 10 to 12 at IISER, Pune. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) aims to support knowledge exchange and partnership opportunities between the UK and India on STEM education approaches to build the human resource capacity for economic development and social well-being. The training workshop focused majorly on developing Research based Pedagogical tools, as it would procure ready to deploy research based learning modules from UK. There were five parallel workshops in the area of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Earth and Climate sciences. This would train teachers to use the same pedagogical tools in their teachings. Sheffield Hallam University and their faculty facilitated the workshop. Manjula Rao, Assistant Director, Internationalizing Higher Education, India, Education and Society said, "We are very happy to be associated with a premier institute like IISER. STEM Teacher training workshop will prove to be extremely useful for teachers as it aims at making Indian teachers and students aware of the demands of the world." "The workshop will not only develop the teaching tools but also help them to form a network for engagement. British Council has always worked towards engaging the best talent of UK and India, STEM is yet another step towards it," added Manjula. The paramount objective is to train and create awareness among 200 teachers to use pedagogical tools in the areas of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Earth and Climate Sciences. The programme highlighted the growing demand for STEM education in India, thereby emphasizing its importance to become globally competent and employable and develop a network of STEM teachers for better peer-to-peer interactions on pedagogy. The holistic endeavor of this workshop is to widen the expertise of trainers / UK experts to help develop project-based pedagogical tools that appeal to different target groups with diverse backgrounds and strengths and to expand the scope of learning by cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural interactions. (ANI-NewsVoir) The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control major case unit visited Cesar's dog psychology center in Santa Clarita, California on Thursday to launch the investigation, reports tmz.com. The visit came after the department was flooded with complaints following the February 26 episode of "Cesar 911". In the show, Milan used a method to stop a French Bulldog named Simon from attacking other dogs. He then put a pig during the training so that the dog wouldn't get hurt if it performed some aggressive actions. Unfortunately, the dog bit the poor pig's ear and it started to bleed. Later on Thursday, a representative for Nat Geo Wild released a statement to defend Milan. "The pig that was nipped by Simon was tended to immediately afterward, healed quickly and showed no lasting signs of distress," the statement read. According to Nat Geo Wild, Milan managed to curb Simon's behavioural problems and helped the dog overcome his aggression. "As a result, Simon did not have to be separated from his owner or euthanised," the statement continued. --Indo-Asian News Service ank/rb ( 211 Words) 2016-03-12-04:19:32 (IANS) President Pranab Mukherjee along with several other dignitaries would be visiting the Sangam city here tomorrow to inaugurate the celebrations marking 150 years of Allahabad High Court. Preparations for the function to be held in the Allahabad High Court permises are being given a final touch. Unprecedented security arrangements have been put in place in and around the venue. The High Court officials here today said the President will be releasing Postal Stamps bearing images of the Allahabad High Court besides the ten-rupee coin during the function which will start at around 1200 hours and will conclude at 1400 hours. The function will also be attended by Chief Justice T S Thakur, Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda and a number of other judges of Supreme Court and Chief Justices of other High Courts. Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav would also be present in the function. The celebrations will be held from March 13 to 17. Several other functions, including inauguration of the High Court's renovated museum and a blood donation camp, will also be held during the week. Allahabad High Court, which has maximum number of serving judges,160, highest in India, has already announced to distribute over 10,000 booklets on the history and importance of the court. Meanwhile on the sesquicentenary celebrations of the Allahabad HC, its Lucknow bench would get an iconic new building which will be inaugurated by Vice-President Hamid Ansari on March 19 in the state capital.Foundation of the new, sprawling state-of-art building was laid by the then chief justice KG Balakrishnan on December 30, 2009. The older building was built in 1903. Spread over a 40-acre plot, the new building has 57 court rooms with 72 chambers for judges and has an office for the advocate general, 1440 chambers for lawyers and a library. Separate facility has been made available to accommodate 2,240 typists and lawyers`` assistants, besides a sitting room for drivers. The five-storey building also boasts of a three-tier underground parking facility with a capacity for 5,000 four-wheelers and 15,000 two-wheelers. Besides multiple lifts, escalators are also installed in each wing of the building. Registrar General of the Allahabad HC, S K Singh Rathore, however, informed that judicial work will not immediately start in the new building and would take some time. The seat of the court is at Allahabad and it maintains a permanent circuit bench at Lucknow, the Administrative capital of the State. Functions would also be held at the Lucknow bench, which is also set to be shifted to its new premises in Gomti Nagar by next couple of month to commemorate the 150th year of the court. Allahabad High Court was founded as the High Court of Judicature for the North-Western Provinces at Agra on March 17, 1866 by the Indian High Courts Act 1861, replacing the old Sadar Diwani Adalat. Sir Walter Morgan, Barrister-at-Law and Mr Simpson were appointed the first Chief Justice and the first Registrar respectively of the High Court of North-Western Provinces. Allahabad became the seat of Government of North-Western Provinces and a High Court was established in 1834 but was shifted to Agra within a year. It was shifted from Agra to Allahabad in 1869 and the name was correspondingly changed to the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad from March 11, 1919. The former High Court was located at the Accountant General's office at the University of Allahabad complex. On November 2,1925, the Oudh Judicial Commissioner's Court was replaced by the Oudh Chief Court at Lucknow by the Oudh Civil Courts Act of 1925, enacted by the United Provinces Legislature with the previous sanction of the Governor General the passing of this Act. On February 25 1948, the Chief Court of Oudh was amalgamated with the High Court of Allahabad.Allahabad High Court was built by Khan Saheb Nizamuddin of Loha Mandi, Agra.UNI MB SV VN1150 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-633048.Xml Chief of Central Army Command Lt Gen B S Negi and seven other armed forces personnel had a narrow escape today as the aircraft in which they were travelling had a difficulty in landing at Jolly Grant airport due to bursting of its tyre. The flight operations at Jolly Grant airport-Dehradun has been temporarily suspended after the incident. "An AVRO aircraft of Central Air Command had a tyre burst at Jolly grant Airport", an official spokesperson said here. "Rectification work is on. No damage was caused to either life or property," the official informed. The aircraft took off from Lucknow airport. UNI MK PS ADG VN1252 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-633190.Xml Miscreants set on fire the local railway ticket counter here reducing the tickets and furniture worth nearly Rs 50,000 to ashes this morning. Rail police sources said tickets worth nearly Rs 20,000 were reduced to ashes when miscreants set the ticket counter on Danapur-Mokame section of East Central railway ablaze. The ticket counter was closed when miscreants targeted it. Police were investigating if delay in opening of the ticket counter led to the incident. One person has been taken into custody for interrogation in this connection.UNI XC IS AD SV VN1244 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-633175.Xml Sashastra Seem Bal (SSB) jawans arrested a narcotic dealer with 4.5 kg of charas worth Rs 50 lakh in international market near Koriar chowk on Indo-Nepal border here. SSB Commandant R K Singh said jawans attached to Pantok outpost on the Indo-Nepal border arrested one Surendra Bhagat with the contraband when he was trying to sneak into Nepal late last night. He said the smuggler is a resident of Parewa village under town police station area and was being quizzed to extract more details.UNI XC IS AD SB VN1241 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-633176.Xml All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which has been awaiting permission from the district administration to hold a rally in the Uttar Pradesh capital on May 17, has said party leader Asaduddin Owaisi will visit the state even if administration does not permit him to address people. However, the AIMIM leaders, enthused with their performance in the Bikapur assembly bypolls where their candidate came fourth after Samajwadi party, RLD and BJP, have announced that," Permission or not, Owaisi will come to UP and will meet people".AIMIM UP president Shaukat Ali here today said that," If the Lucknow authorities give permission to hold a public meeting, then Mr Owaisi will return on the same day. Otherwise, he will stay for two days and visit several other districts."The party has approached Lucknow administration seeking permission to hold Mr Owaisi's public meeting on March 17 at Refah-e-Aam Club ground in the state capital. "We had submitted our application three days ago but have not received any confirmation. We are not bothered about the outcome as Mr Owaisi will come here in any case," Mr Ali said.The AIMIM argued that there is "little time" left for the 2017 assembly polls in the state, which it cannot waste in waiting for permission."It is too late and there is little time left for the polls next year. Hence, causing delay on things such as permission cannot be accepted. Mr Owaisi will come to meet people," he said.The AIMIM has drawn up a plan for Mr Owaisi's visit. Besides addressing a public meeting in Lucknow, the Hyderabad MP is expected to visit Islamic seminary Nadwatul Uloom and Dargah of Haji Waris Ali Shah in Dewa Shareed (Barabanki). On the next day, he will visit eastern districts of UP.Lucknow's Additional District Magistrate (West) J S Dubey said they were yet to decide on the request of the AIMIM.In the past one-and-a-half year, district authorities have prevented the AIMIM from holding public meetings on at least 12 occasions proposed to be held in Allahabad, Agra, Azamgarh and some other places.But during the Bikapur Assembly bypolls, Mr Owaisi addressed two election meetings in February last thus ending its undeclared ban by the ruling Samajwadi Party.The party had also approached the Allahabad High Court describing the decision of these district authorities to deny permission for public meetings as politically motivated.Mr Owaisi was prevented from holding a rally at Allahabad on April 26 last year, and had been stopped by the Lucknow city administration on March 15, 2015. He was denied permission to address a public meeting in Agra on March 29, 2015. This had been the pattern in 2014 too, both before and after the general elections. In 2014, AIMIM was not allowed to hold public meetings to be addressed by Mr Owaisi on three occasions, including February 1, April 25 and June 12, 2014 in Azamgarh and then again, on September 7, 2014 in Allahabad. The party approached the Allahabad High Court for three of its meetings for which permission was denied by the authorities. UNI MB SV VN1239 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-633068.Xml Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde, signed a Memorandum of Understanding here on Saturday to establish a capacity development center in the national capital. Speaking on the occasion, Lagarde said "I would like to thank Prime Minister Modi, Finance Minister Jaitley and the Indian Government for offering to host the center and for their substantial financial commitment. This will be the First center that fully integrates training and technical assistance and is a model for our future capacity development work. I would also like to express my appreciation to the other member countries for joining with India, the IMF, and partners like Australia and the Republic of Korea, in making this exciting initiative happen." The South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Center (SARTTAC) is expected to become the focal point for planning, coordinating, and implementing the IMF's capacity development activities in the region on a wide range of areas, including macroeconomic and fiscal management, monetary operations, financial sector regulation and supervision, and macroeconomic statistics. The center will help address existing training needs and respond to the demand for IMF training in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, while bringing the region's training volume on par with those of other regions. The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) represents a key step toward a fully integrated capacity development center in New Delhi, and demonstrates the shared commitment between the IMF and its membership in using technical assistance and training as vehicles for economic stability and inclusive growth. SARTTAC will offer courses and seminars for policymakers and other government agencies from the six aforementioned countries. It will build upon the IMF's in-depth experience with capacity development by drawing on the experiences of the IMF's Regional Technical Assistance Centers and Regional Training Centers, which have a proven track record of delivering technical assistance on economic institution building. Funding will come from contributions by Regional Member countries and Development Partners. The Australian Agency for International Development, the Republic of Korea and India have pledged financial support for the said center. (ANI) Miscreants thrashed two farmers to death and injured five others over a dispute on harvesting of crops at Dharampur village under Khanpur police station area in the district today. Police said here that a farmer Bana Rai harvested wheat crops grown in the field of another farmer Braham Rai creating dispute over the issue. When the tension escalated, supporters of Bana Rai attacked Braham Rai with bamboo sticks, resulting in his on the spot death. Later, supporters of Braham Rai also badly attacked Bana Rai with bamboo sticks leading to his on the spot death too. Five people belonging to rival groups who sustained injuries in the assault had been admitted to Samastipur Sadar Hospital. Both groups had lodged complaints with the police station concerned in this connection. Further investigation is on, the sources added.UNI XC DH AD SV VN1323 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-633206.Xml Chairman of the hardline Hurriyat Conference (HC) Syed Ali Shah Geelani has been removed from Max hospital, New Delhi this afternoon. Mr Geelani was admitted to Max hospital on March 10 after he complained of breathlessness and pain in the chest. Special prayers were held across the Kashmir valley for speedy recovery of Mr Geelani. Pakistan High Commissioner in India Abdul Basit and Deputy High Commissioner Abdullah Nizamani besides other officials of the embassy visited the Max hospital yesterday to enquire about the health of Mr Geelani and conveyed him best wishes of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. HC spokesman Aiyaz Akbar, who is with Mr Geelani, said the amalgam chairman has been discharged from the hospital. Mr Geelani was stable and recovering fast, Aiyaz said adding there is nothing to worry about the health condition of Mr Geelani. He said the separatist leader had a light breakfast this morning in the hospital and after check up doctors declared him fit for discharge. Aiyaz said Mr Basit and other officials from the Pak embassy visited the hospital and prayed for the speedy recovery of Mr Geelani. There was also brief conversation between the two, he said adding earlier during the day a special prayer meeting for Mr Geelani was held at Pak High Commission in New Delhi Aiyaz said that Mr Basit termed Mr Geelani as the 'symbol of freedom struggle of Kashmir and well-wisher of Pakistan. The Deputy High Commissioner on the occasion said ''the entire Pakistani nation is praying for his good health and are very concerned about his health.'' He said that Mr Basit informed Mr Geelani that Mr Sharif, who is currently in Saudi Arabia, called him over phone and asked about the health condition of Mr Geelani. While expressing his best wishes for Mr Geelani, Mr Sharif ordered him to remain in constant touch with the attendants of Mr Geelani and keep him informed accordingly, Aiyaz added.UNI BAS QAB ADG RK1555 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-633383.Xml Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Ramakant Khalap today alleged that the state government led by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar was adopting anti-farmers policies and said the party will take up the issue in the Assembly and outside. Addressing a press conference along with Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) General Secretary Sunil Kawathankar, he said, '' today is the birthday of first Chief Minister of Goa Dayanand Bandodkar who was committed for the welfare of the masses, peasants, downtrodden and economically backward people. But whatever he did in his tenure is being uprooted by the present government. The government has trampled upon the interests of agricultural tenants and forced them to move courts where pendency is so high and procedures so lengthy that no tenant can fight for his right.'' Alleging that intention of the government was to 'sell' the state to outsiders, he said Goa was losing out and Goans themselves had become outsiders in the state. Mr Khalap, who held various portfolios in the state government in the past, also alleged that the government was not interested in providing benefits to the Scheduled Tribe community. ''Almost 12 per cent of the population is Scheduled Tribe (ST). They are land holders and Constitution provides special benefits in terms of reservation to their customs, land and property. Constitution also gives them reservations in public bodies that is Assembly and Parliament. Four years have gone by when the government came to power, one easy step was required to pass a law providing for reservation for Scheduled Tribe. But nothing has been done. We wish to give the last push to the issue and make sure that the law is passed,'' he said. He also alleged that the state government has not done enough to recover losses caused by illegal mining in the state before blanket ban on the industry. UNI AKM NV ADG VN1700 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0171-633532.Xml In an apparent bid to allay apprehension of witch-hunting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today assured Centre's full support to the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar for its speedy growthand development. "My conviction is that we can not change the future of the country unless future of Bihar is changed," Mr Modi remarked while dedicating rail portion of Digha-Sonepur rail cum road bridge over Ganga to thenation built at an estimated cost of Rs 2,921 crore at Chhaukia in Vaishali district. Mr Modi, who is on his maiden visit to the state after humiliating defeat of the BJP-led NDA in the last Assembly election, said his government completed 34 per cent of pending work on rail portion of Digha-Sonepur rail-cum road bridge over Ganga river during the last 18 months. "What the predecessor government at the centre was doing to complete the work on the bridge for which former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had laid the foundation in 2002. He also recalled Nitish Kumar was the then railway minister. The project cost escalated from Rs. 500-600 crore to Rs. 3000 crore due to the delay in the execution of the project, Mr Modi stated adding that even the budgetary allocation for the project would have been made for the bridge in a routine manner, the bridge could have been inaugurated five-seven years back.MORE UNI DH IS AE VN1755 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-633740.Xml Two people, including a tempo driver, were killed, while four of the 10 injured were serious when a tempo trax in which they were travelling skidded off the road near Jategaon on Jategaon-Girnare road in Harsul taluka of the district today.According to Harsul police about 30 workers were travelling in a tempo trax. The tempo was coming to Girnare from Jategaon. The front tyre of the vehicle suddenly bursted and the tempo skidded from the road.The deceased are identified as Arjun Sole (45), the tempo driver, who was killed on the spot while, Dharma Deoram Bahate (48) succumbed to his injury in the civil hospital.The injured have been admitted in Nashik civil hospital. Police have registered a case and further investigations are on .UNI RDS SM PY 1957 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0171-634049.Xml The list of probable Congress candidates for Assam Assembly election was finalised at a high-level meeting of the ruling party here today. State party president Anjan Dutta left for New Delhi with the list this evening for approval from the party high command. The candidate list is likely to be declared on March 15 or 16. Talking to reporters here, MR Dutta said about 59 constituencies have a single name panel, comprising mostly ministers and sitting MLAs. In other constituencies, panel of 2-3 names has been forwarded for finalisation by high command. Mr Dutta added that preference was being given to young and women candidates. Congress will be fielding candidates in 122 out of 126 constituencies, leaving four seats for ally United People's Front. Election for Assam Assembly will be held in two phases on April 4 and 11 next. UNI SG KK AE VN1934 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-633868.Xml Nagaland Home Minister Y. Patton called on the Union Minister of State (MoS) for Home Affairs Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary at his office North Block New Delhi. According to a statement issued today by Nagaland House New Delhi PRO informed that during the meeting, Patton apprised Chaudhary of over pending proposals on police modernisation with the Home Ministry. To which, the Union Minister of State for Home has assured to sanction the pending proposals "very soon." The statement also stated that Mr Chaurdhary has accepted Patton's invitation to visit Nagaland and that the programme for the same would be finalized soon. UNI AS KK SHS GC1714 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-633880.Xml The final numbers for this years Dew Downtown are in and this years event drew more locals than visitors. According to a staff report sent to Flagstaff City Council, between 4,000 and 6,000 people attended the Downtown Winter Festival part of the event. This years event location was split, with most of the rides and vendors holding court on Saturday in downtown Flagstaff and the ski and snowboarding competition held on Sunday at Arizona Snowbowl. Most of those attending said they were locals, with more than half saying this was their first visit to the festival. Staff based the attendance number on wristband sales for rides and activity waivers. The city incurred $46,025 in hard costs and took in $58,549 in revenue. More than 1,000 hours of regular staff time was not billed to the event. The report also states that 78 percent of those surveyed said they ate or shopped at a local business while attending the festival. According to the report, Downtown Business Alliance Director Terry Madeksza told staff that most local business owners were pleased with the event. Mountain Sports, Babbitt Sports, the Old Town Shops and the Monte Vista all showed an increase in sales over the previous Saturday of the event in 2015. Some business owners have asked that the event be stretched to two days next year. The report also states that the event used 330,000 gallons of potable water this year, a decrease of 170,000 gallons from last year. This was mainly due to the ski and snowboarding events being moved to Snowbowl this year. The city is working with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and hopes to change the current rules regarding the use of non-potable water on the citys streets later this year. The change would allow the city to use non-potable or possibly reclaimed water to make snow for next years event. A total of 84 city employees worked on the event this year. Last year, around 107 city employees worked on the event. Last year, more than 2,000 hours of city staff time was spent on the event at a cost of $60,000 in regular staff hours and more than $14,000 in overtime costs. The overtime costs were covered by sponsorships, but the city had to cover the costs of the regular hours. The drop in city employees working on this years event was due to a partnership between the city and the Downtown Business Alliance. This years event also had 42 volunteers who worked 153 hours. This year, city staff spent 1,067 hours on the event and spent $5,384 on overtime costs for the citys Streets and Parks departments. It also spent $39,116 on contracts and commodities for the event and $1,437 for temporary and overtime staffing for the citys Recreation Department. Last year, the city spent around $83,030 on the event, including $39,754 on contracts, $27,620 on supplies, and $2,560 on temporary staffing. The 2016 event also brought in $58,549 in revenue through sponsors, wristband and merchandise sales. Last year, the event brought in $83,719, with $66,850 coming from sponsorships and more than $16,868 in merchandise, registration, beer sales and VIP tickets. Mr Modi left for New Delhi after a short visit of about 4 hours to the state during which he participated in closing ceremony of the Centenary celebrations of the Patna High Court. He also dedicated to the nation, rail portion of Digha-Sonepur rail-cum road bridge over Ganga built at an estimated cost of Rs 2921crore and commenced operation of Goods trains on railway portion at the cost of Rs 2774 crore rail-cum road bridge in Munger. Bihar Governor Ramnath Kovind, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, former minister Nand Kishore Yadav, state BJP president Mangal Pandey and senior officers of Bihar government were present at airport when the Prime Minister left for New Delhi. It was the first visit of Mr Modi to Bihar after state assembly elections in October-November last year.UNI KKS KK AE GC1948 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-633966.Xml The decision was taken at a high-level meeting of the BJP, addressed by the party in-charge and national vice-president Om Mathur here. The public rallies would be held at Mau, Allahabad, Lucknow, Moradabad and Jehanabad in Kanpur and they will be addressed by the BJP's national president Amit Shah and union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The organisational meeting also appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the crop insurance scheme rolled out for farmers. State spokesman Manoj Mishra said it was also decided that the party leaders would explain the nuances of the budget to the people at the grassroots level and make them aware of how the budget would ring in development and prosperity in rural India. A meeting of all party MP's from the state has been convened in New Delhi on March 14, scheduled to be addressed by Amit Shah. It was also decided that April 6, the party's foundation day would be celebrated as 'Samarpan Diwas' and on April 14, the birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar will be celebrated in all districts of Uttar Pradesh with fanfare. --Indo-Asian News Service md/sd/bg ( 229 Words) 2016-03-12-20:57:32 (IANS) Trinamool Congress said they will field its candidates in all the 140 constituencies in the ensuing assembly elections to Kerala. Talking to newspersons here today, TC Kerala President Manoj Sankaranellur, while announcing the first list of 70 candidates here, said the second list containing another 70 candidates would be released soon after getting clearanace from Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Claiming that the party has over two lakh members in the state, Mr Manoj informed that Ms Mamatha would arrive in the State in April and address election meetings at Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. The TC leader expressed the confidence that the party could be able to prove its strength in at least 40 constituencies because of the support of as many as 15 lakh people from Bengal, working in various construction sectors in Kerala. Ms Mamata said she would visit the state to expose the opportunistic understanding between the Congress and the CPI(M) in Bengal, whereas in Kerala, both the deadly-foes are having a "nexus", even though they are contesting against each other. Claiming that many senior Congress leaders, including former Chengannur MLA Sobhana George would join TC, he alleged that both the CPI(M) and the Congress were trying to fool around with the people of Kerala.UNI CGV KVV AK 2015 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0312-634059.Xml An inter-faith meet, stunning dance and musical performances and participation of the cream of Indian politics were the main highlights of the second day at the World Culture Festival (WCF) of the Art of Living (AOL) on the Yamuna Flood plains. Not letting the bad weather and muddy venue dampening their spirits, over a lakh people again gathered here to celebrate the 35 years of AOL, founded by Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.The second day started off with 150 pundits chanting Vedic hymns, following a grand orchestra with 8500 musicians playing 50 instruments, including Tabla, Sitar and Flute amid thunderous applause and cheering from the audiences. The prominent among those religious leaders, who attended the inter-faith meet, were Giani Gurbachan Singhji, Akal Takht Jathedar, Ven Dhamma Master Hsin Tao, Buddhist Preacher and Swathantranand Maharaj, Hindu Priest. The religious leaders, who gathered from across the globe, said the faith figures have been playing a big role in bringing the hearts closer to each other. The massive seven acre stage, which is said to be the world's largest, then hosted as many as 250 folk dancers from Madhya Pradesh, who performed the traditional 'Gudum Baja' at the venue.It was followed by 350 dancers, donning traditional attire, from Sikkim performing the 'Maruni', a folk dance of the state and Darjeeling. The cultural extravaganza also witnessed majestic dance and musical performances of foreign continents such as of Chinese, Thai and Russians. The artists of Switzerland played 'alphine horn', their folk music instrument, and drew immediate appreciation amongst the crowd. The event was attended by many foreign and home dignitaries including Home Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma and Former Pakistan's Minister Sherry Rehman. 'Gurudev Sri Sri is capable of creating such a magnificent splendor anywhere in the world. I am overwhelmed by the amalgamation of spirituality on the stage but I am not surprised!' Ms Swaraj said. Applauding the WCF, Mr Sharma said '' it's a very proud moment for us. The whole world has come up in Delhi. We all are so very happy.'' Addressing gathering here, the Spiritual Guru dubbed the three day mega festival as 'Olympics of culture' and said people must not only respect their culture but also value other people's traditional values as their own. '' The Yamuna must be rejoicing with presence of so many saints today,'' the Guru said, who was fined Rs 5 crore by National Green Tribunal for allegedly disturbing ecologically fragile river's flood plains. '' Let us bear in our minds that what we are doing here is universal brotherhood and universality, for a moment we should rise above nationalities and consider ourselves as universal citizens,'' the Guru noted. As darkness grew, the audiences flashed thousands of flashlights, symbolizing the 'Light of the Soul" that also gave a panoramic view of the event. The mega three-day world cultural extravaganza of the spiritual guru off to a spectacular start yesterday here with art performances from across the globe, enthralling an audience of about one to two lakh on the bank of the Yamuna, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling for uniting the world with human and cultural values. UNI RG RJ 2136 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0377-634219.Xml Ambikesh Mahapatra, the Jadavpur university professor who made the headlines after getting arrested for circulating social media posts mocking Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, will contest in the coming West Bengal Assembly elections representing a rights group."Akranta Aamra" (we are under attack), a rights forum today announced his name as a candidate from the city's Behala east constituency as a mark of its fight against the "oppressive" Trinamool Congress.The organisation also announced the candidature of Pratima Dutta, wife of murdered environmental activist Tapan Dutta as its candidate from Domjur in Howrah district.Both Mr.Mahapatra and Ms. Dutta would contest as independent candidates.The organisation that comprises "victims of human rights violations" allegedly by the state administration, sought support from all opposition parties."On our part it is more of an experiment to send a true peoples' representative to the assembly who will air the voice of all those who have been oppressed by the barbaric Trinamool Congress government," Forum convenor Arunava Ganguly said at a press conference.Mr.Mahapatra, whose arrest had triggered an uproar across the state and prompted the state human rights commission to ask the state government to pay a compensation to him, said he was fighting the election for the people of West Bengal who "are not safe under the present dispensation.""We have sought the support of all the political parties which are opposed to the Trinamool," he said. Ms Dutta, the other candidate, has been fighting for justice after her husband was shot dead in 2011 for opposing the filling of a wetland in Bally in Howrah. She said it was her endeavour to "unmask the criminal-politician nexus" that had caused her husband's murder. UNI.KDG KK CJ RJ2227 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-634240.Xml Police said, a Rubi Hospital-Bakultala (K7) route private bus suddenly lost its control and hit another Jadavpur-Howrah Station (E1) state (CSTC) bus this evening at Deshapriya Park crossing in south Kolkata. At least 12 passengers of both buses were injured in the accident and rushed to nearby hospital. Police from Tollygunge Police Station went to the spot and detained both buses.UNI BM CJ RJ AS2233 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-634256.Xml The United States will raise during UN Security Council consultations next week the issue of Iran's recent ballistic missile launches and is urging countries to cooperate on undermining Tehran's missile program, the US envoy to the United Nations said."We will raise these dangerous launches directly at Council consultations, which we have called for, on Monday," US Ambassador Samantha Power said in a statement yesterday. "These launches underscore the need to work with partners around the world to slow and degrade Iran's missile program."A series of ballistic missile tests this week conducted by Iran's Revolutionary Guard units drew international concern. The United States, France and other countries said that if confirmed, the new launches of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles would violate UN Security Council resolution 2231.Power said Iran's missile launches were "provocative and destabilizing.""Moreover, Iranian military leaders have reportedly claimed these missiles are designed to be a direct threat to Israel," she said. "We condemn such threats against another UN member state and one of our closest allies."Power added that Washington would continue to demand "full implementation of resolution 2231, which expressly prohibits third-party support to Iran's ballistic missile program, as we also consider our appropriate national response."The closed-door consultations on Iran will take place Monday morning. The 15-nation Security Council is scheduled to hold separate consultations on Syria at 10 a.m. ET (2030 IST).The United States has said Iran's missile tests do not violate the terms of an historic nuclear deal between Tehran and six major powers, which resolution 2231, adopted in July 2015, endorsed. The UN missile restrictions and an arms embargo on Iran are not technically part of the nuclear agreement.Council diplomats say they will first await confirmation from national intelligence agencies about whether the missiles Iran has fired were nuclear-capable. They also say that Russia and China, which had opposed continuing UN restrictions on Iran's missile program, would likely block council action.Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the tests were not in violation of the nuclear agreement, which led to lifting of sanctions in January.Western diplomats say resolution 2231, which "calls upon" Iran to refrain from certain ballistic missile activity, offers no green light for nuclear-capable missile launches by Tehran and is therefore a clear ban.However, they acknowledge that Russia, China and Iran likely interpret that language as an appeal to Iran to voluntarily refrain from missile activity. Tehran has also said that none of its missiles are designed to carry nuclear weapons.While no new UN sanctions may be imminent, Western diplomats say that the United States and some of its allies could take additional punitive action in the form of unilateral national sanctions against Iran over the latest missile launches, something Washington has done previously.When UN sanctions on Iran were lifted in January, the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee was shut down. But council diplomats said they expect the former chair of that now-defunct committee, Spain, will take on the task of overseeing the monitoring of Tehran's compliance with resolution 2231.REUTERS KU 0407 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0348-632980.Xml Police are investigating whether former Russian Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, who was found dead in a Washington hotel in November, was brutally assaulted before returning to the hotel, a US law enforcement source said.The source familiar with the investigation said authorities were trying to determine a possible motive for the apparent attack and do not have any suspects.US authorities said on Thursday that Lesin died of blunt force injuries to the head. At the time of his death, Russia's RT television quoted family members as saying Lesin had died of a heart attack. He was 57.State Department spokesman John Kirby said yesterday that US officials had facilitated contact between Washington police and the Russian government."There is an avenue of direct communication between the police department and the Russian government," he told reporters.Rumors have swirled around the death of the former Putin adviser since he was found dead in his room in the Doyle Washington Hotel, which is also known as the Dupont Circle Hotel, last Nov. 5.Lesin served as President Vladimir Putin's press minister from 1999 to 2004. He was named head of state-controlled Gazprom-Media in 2013 but resigned the following year and moved to Los Angeles.In 2014, U.S. Senator Roger F. Wicker asked the US Department of Justice to investigate Lesin for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices act. The Senator, a Republican from Mississippi, questioned how Lesin was able to purchase 28 million dollar worth of properties in Los Angeles after leaving the Russian government.The Justice Department has no open investigation of Lesin, a U.S. Law enforcement official said on Friday. The official declined to comment on the investigation into Lesin's death.On the night he died, Lesin was scheduled to attend a gala at Washington's Ritz-Carlton hotel honoring Russian billionaire and philanthropist Pyotr Aven, Radio Free Europe reported. But Lesin never arrived at the dinner.As of 2013, Lesin and his wife Valentina lived in a lavish Beverly Hills home about 10 miles from the home of Mikhail's son, Anton Lessine, a Hollywood producer, according to court records. The son's recent film credits include Fury, a World War II movie starring Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf, and Rock the Kasbah, a feature starring Bill Murray.The home owned by the former Putin adviser is 5,500-square-foot, has five bedrooms and six bathrooms, has an assessed value of 4.3 million dollar, according to property records.In 2013, a housekeeper who worked for both Lesin and his son filed suit against both men and their wives for various violations of labor law.Lesin and his son ran their business interests partly through a company called the Dastel Corporation, with both men serving as corporate officers, according to court filings.A man who answered the phone at a number listed for Dastel said he had no comment on the company's business or Lesin's involvement in it.The home where Lesin and his wife lived in Beverly Hills is owned by a holding company, Java Drive Inc. The registered agent for the holding company, a Los Angeles CPA named Stephen Rousso, said in a phone interview that he had not heard of Mikhail Lesin.REUTERS KU 0536 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0348-632991.Xml Donald Trump's Republican rivals for the White House condemned protests that shut down his planned Chicago rally today, but said his incendiary speech was partly to blame.In statements to the press, candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio both called the incident "sad" and said the people who chanted anti-Trump slogans and scuffled with Trump's fans inside a stadium at the University of Illinois should have respected the candidate and let the rally happen.But they added that Trump shared some responsibility.Trump has drawn fervent support as well as harsh criticism for his calls to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and to impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.His rallies often attract small groups of protesters, but today's was the first at which there may have been as many protesters as supporters.The two sides shouted at each other until a Trump campaign staffer appeared and announced the event would be put off until an unspecified date for security reasons. The cancellation followed a an appearance by Trump in St. Louis, Missouri earlier today during which protests forced the front-runner to halt his speech repeatedly."Go home to mommy," Trump said as security personnel ejected one of the protesters in St. Louis."When you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence," Cruz, the Texas senator, said, "you create an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discourse."In Chicago, while activity inside the rally was largely peaceful, a group of protesters gathered nearby clashed briefly with police when they tried to shut down an expressway, a Chicago Police Department spokesman said.Two police officers were injured; one required stitches, according to the spokesman. A reporter for CBS News was arrested and later released, according to media reports.Trump has a significant lead in primary contests over the three remaining Republicans vying for the White House, and he is looking to cement it on Tuesday when voters in five more states, including Illinois, go to the polls. Ohio Governor John Kasich, also battling Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, said the protests occurred because "the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit."Rubio, the Florida senator, had the harshest words for the protesters. He said in a Fox News interview protests in Chicago had become "an industry" and some of the people involved were "probably being paid to do this." REUTERS PS VN1151 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-633143.Xml The landing drill involved 17,200 soldiers, including 12,200 American marine and navy troops, Yonhap News Agency reported. Several key US vessels, including the USS Bonhomme Richard and amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland, were a part of the Amphibious Operations (AMPHOPS), which also simulated the destruction of major enemy installations. Australia and New Zealand also participated in the drill. The two countries are among the 17 nations that are currently stationing military forces under the flag of the UN Command, which backed South Korea in the 1950-1953 Korean War that ended in an armistice but was never followed up by a definitive peace treaty. This is the first time that New Zealand has dispatched troops to Pohang, and Australia's deployment is their largest so far. The drill is a part of the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises carried out between Washington and Seoul, ongoing until the end of April. North Korea considers the operations a rehearsal for a possible invasion. Pyongyang said on Saturday it seeks to retaliate against the joint military exercises and is "waiting for the moment to punish the aggressors, keeping them within its firing range". --Indo-Asian News Service ksk/rd ( 224 Words) 2016-03-12-14:23:34 (IANS) Chabad of Flagstaff is a communal organization that has been serving the needs of Flagstaffs Jewish community, NAU students, tourists and others. Since it opened in a small storefront in 2006, it has grown to encompass a day camp, religious school, adult-education arm, and synagogue. In 2010, with help from George and Pamela Rohr, Chabad of Flagstaff purchased a centrally located 2-acre parcel of land on University Avenue. They now had the property but lacked the funds to build a new center. They later received a $2 million gift from the estate of Molly Blank. But the gift came with strings attached: Chabad of Flagstaff would need to raise $1 million of their own. Over the past months, friends of Chabad of Flagstaff have donated and they are just over halfway to their goal. But with less than a month left to bring in $500,000, they are now turning to a matching-funds campaign to bring in the rest. Through the help of four donors, every dollar donated from noon on Sunday, March 13, to noon on Tuesday, March 15, will be tripled with the goal of raising $500,000 in 48 hours. Organizers of the campaign calculate that $150,000 of donations will equal $500,000, which will push them over the top of their $1 million fundraising target and allow them to receive the $2 million from the Molly Blank Fund. To donate to Chabad of Flagstaffs building campaign visit www.JewishFlagstaff.com/BringItHome or call 928-255-5756 during the 48 hours. Beirut (AFP) - When hopeful pro-democracy activists in Syria took to the streets in 2011, they couldn't have imagined that five years later they might end up living as refugees in Europe. Using smartphones to keep up with the news from camps and relatives' homes thousands of kilometres (miles) away, they mourn a revolt that gave way to an internationalised war. "When I arrived in Germany, I felt like I was living with an open wound, like I'd lost my soul. I felt guilty for leaving everything behind," says Jimmy Shahinian, a 28-year-old activist with sharp features and jet-black hair. "We had made a promise that we would change things," he tells AFP by phone from his new home, an apartment he shares with five other young men in Genthin, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Berlin. Syria's conflict erupted on March 15, 2011, when protesters massed on the streets to demand that President Bashar al-Assad step down. Activists took the lead, using Facebook and Skype to organise protests, speak with international journalists, and broadcast clever slogans calling for the regime's downfall. Shahinian, a Christian, joined the movement, and was subsequently jailed and tortured. When the jihadist Islamic State group took over his native city Raqa in 2013, he began receiving terrifying death threats. Smuggled into Turkey in an ambulance, Shahinian became one of nearly five million Syrians who have fled the country since the conflict began. But even in Turkey, where at least three young anti-IS activists have been assassinated in recent months, he felt unsafe. "I had no choice but to leave," he says. Like most other new arrivals in Germany, his first port of call was an asylum-seeker camp, where he shared a room with some 10 other people. He tries to keep his cause alive by volunteering for a civil society group in Berlin named Citizens for Syria and learning German, though he admits "it is very hard to get used to the new life". Story continues "I suppose it's always this way. We sparked the revolution, and the spark is always the first to burn." - 'Besieged in my head' - Some, like citizen journalist Yazan, are unable to abandon a cause that they were ready to die for. Yazan lived through a brutal, nearly two-year siege in the Old City of Homs, once known as the "capital of the revolution" but now squarely back in regime hands. He would spend his days snapping photos of children playing in rubble, rebels standing guard, wounded being rushed to dismally equipped field hospitals and cats wandering through ancient architectural gems reduced to ruins. By night, Yazan would sign into Skype to speak to journalists covering Syria, shedding light on the destruction of Homs and on military developments on the frontlines. After surviving daily bombardment and eating little more than weeds for months, he has spent the past year in the quiet comfort of his uncle's idyllic home in Saint Etienne, central France. Although he lives in a different world, Yazan says the conflict, and its root cause, remain with him. He spends his nights poring over activists' Facebook pages, following minute-by-minute developments on the ground. "In Syria my body was besieged. Here, I am besieged in my head," says the 30-year-old. He admits he can't move on while his father and brother remain among the estimated 200,000 people held in the regime's hellish jails. "Here I can eat, I can sleep in safety. But however hard I try, I can't imagine the future," Yazan says. "My whole life is on hold until the regime falls." - Major powers' 'playing field' - Ahmad al-Rifai, a 24-year-old who spent months taking photos in opposition strongholds across northern Syria, is also in Germany -- where more than one million asylum requests were registered last year. He blames the Syrian government but also the international community for the transformation of the revolt into a war that has killed 270,000 people. "In the good old days, the people would decide when and where to protest, or when to go on strike," Rifai says. "Now, the Syrian people have no decision-making power at all. Syria has become a playing field for major powers like Russia, the United States and Iran." Despite the pain of watching his ravaged country from afar, Rifai tries to stay hopeful. He has learned to speak German since arriving in Aachen city in 2014, and he serves as a translator between newly arrived refugees and Red Cross volunteers. In April, he will start an internship with a digital media company. He hopes one day to return to Syria, to help rebuild. "Once an activist, always an activist," he says. By Jeff Mason AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday made a passionate case for mobile devices to be built in a way that would allow the government to gain access to personal data if needed to prevent a terrorist attack or enforce tax laws. Speaking at the South by Southwest festival in Texas, the president said he could not comment on the legal case in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to force Apple Inc. to allow access to an iPhone linked to San Bernardino, California, shooter Rizwan Farook. But he made clear that despite his commitment to Americans' privacy and civil liberties, a balance was needed to allow some government intrusion if necessary. "If technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there is no key, there's no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?" he said. "What mechanisms do we have available to even do simple things like tax enforcement because if in fact you can't crack that at all, government can't get in, then everybody is walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket." Last month, the FBI obtained a court order requiring Apple to write new software and take other measures to disable passcode protection and allow access to Farook's iPhone. Apple, which declined to comment on Obama's remarks on Friday, has not complied. It said the government request would create a "back door" to phones that could be abused by criminals and governments, and that Congress has not given the Justice Department authority to make such a demand. Obama's comments were his most expansive on the subject since the dispute. He acknowledged skepticism about the government in the wake of the revelations about U.S. surveillance programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. But he pressed his point that a compromise that respected civil liberties and protected security had to be found. That solution would likely be a system with strong encryption and a secure "key" that is accessible to the "smallest number of people possible" for issues that were agreed to be important. "Setting aside the specific case between the FBI and Apple ... were going to have to make some decisions about how do we balance these respective risks," Obama said. "My conclusion so far is you cannot take an absolutist view." Adding to his argument, the president listed airport security and stops for drunk drivers as examples of measures that were intrusive but accepted. He also warned against "fetishizing" phones. "This notion that somehow our data is different and can be walled off from those other tradeoffs we make I believe is incorrect," he said. Top White House officials have lobbied the industry aggressively to work with the government on the issue, which was brought to a head by the California shootings. The FBI says Farook and his wife were inspired by Islamist militants when they shot and killed 14 people on Dec. 2 at a holiday party in California. The couple later died in a shootout with police. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and Dustin Volz; Editing by Robert Birsel) ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's army said on Friday it had killed three Islamist militants near the eastern city of El Oued and seized a large quantity of weapons including six anti-aircraft missiles. One of those killed in the operation late on Thursday was Kamel Arabiya, a senior militant and veteran of Algeria's civil war in the 1990s, the defence ministry said in a statement. Arabiya led the local brigade of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and according to news reports may have recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State. The military said it had recovered six Stinger surface-to-air missiles, two explosive belts, three rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and more than 20 guns. The Algerian military is on high alert because of the risk from neighbouring Libya, where militants have taken advantage of a security vacuum to build their presence in the region. A security source told Reuters the weapons seized on Thursday were "very likely from Libya, our biggest headache right now". Following the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, some intelligence experts estimated that as many as 10,000-15,000 man-portable air defence system (MANPAD) sets were looted from Libyan government stockpiles. Algerian security services have previously found hundreds of MANPADs near the Libyan border. Such weapons can bring down aircraft with surface-to-air missiles. Algeria has slowly emerged from a conflict with armed Islamists in the 1990s that left as many as 200,000 dead, and still sees occasional militant violence in parts of the country. It is considered a key Western ally in the fight against Islamist extremism in North Africa. (Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Andrew Roche) ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's state energy firm Sonatrach has awarded an $880 million contract to supply oil and gas drilling tubes to four foreign firms, a document seen by Reuters on Friday showed. The companies named in the Sonatrach document dated Feb. 21. are Germany's CCC Machinery, Dutch firm Van Leeuwen, Japan's Marubeni-Itochu, and Vallourec Tubes France. A senior Sonatrach official also told Reuters that a list of approved foreign suppliers of oil and gas services, drilling equipment, and hydrocarbon transportation would be expanded. OPEC member Algeria, which has been hurt by a 70-percent fall in oil prices since mid-2014, says it is determined to increase oil and gas production to sustain exports and meet growing local demand. However, it has struggled to attract foreign oil companies in recent energy bidding rounds. "We urge all the contractors to participate en masse in the next tenders," the source told Reuters, without saying when the next tender would be. This week Sonatrach said it would invest $3.2 billion over four years to increase pipeline capacity as natural gas output rises from new and existing fields. (Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; Editing by Aidan Lewis) Miami (AFP) - Astronaut Scott Kelly will retire from NASA next month, after spending nearly a year in space and setting a record for the most cumulative days in space of any American, the US space agency said. Kelly, a former Navy pilot who joined NASA in 1996, will leave the agency April 1. "This year-in-space mission was a profound challenge for all involved, and it gave me a unique perspective and a lot of time to reflect on what my next step should be on our continued journey to help further our capabilities in space and on Earth," Kelly said in a statement. "I am humbled and excited by new opportunities for me to support and share the amazing work NASA is doing to help us travel farther into the solar system and work with the next generation of science and technology leaders." He gave no further details on his plans post-retirement. However, Kelly -- who is allowing his body to be studied to further research on the effects of long-term spaceflight -- will "continue to participate in the ongoing research related to his one-year mission," NASA said. "He will provide periodic medical samples and support other testing in much the same way that his twin brother, former astronaut Mark Kelly, made himself available for NASA's Twins Study during his brother's mission." Kelly is a four-time veteran of spaceflight. His first trip was aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1999, during a mission to repair NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. His other three missions were to the International Space Station. His latest mission lasted 340 days, and gave him a US record of 520 cumulative days in space. Kelly said he hoped the legacy of his near-year mission would be to help pave the way toward a deep space mission to Mars someday. For now, the risks of long-term spaceflight remain unclear, amid concerns such as high radiation, food supply and the psychological challenges of spending months or years away from Earth. "When the first Americans set foot on Mars, they will be following in the footsteps of one of the finest astronauts in the history of the space program, my friend, Commander Scott Kelly," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "I can think of no one more deserving of some well-deserved rest and time on the same planet as his family and friends." In the first-ever visit by a president to the technology and arts festival South by Southwest, Barack Obama spoke about cybersecurity, countering religious extremism, and engaging citizens through new digital avenues. He also urged members of the tech industry to help solve Americas most pressing challenges. The reason Im here is to recruit all of you, he said in a discussion with the Texas Tribunes Evan Smith. Its to say to you, as Im about to leave office, how can we start coming up with new platforms, new ideas, new approaches to solve some of the big problems that were facing today. Held before an audience of about 2,000 SXSW attendees at the Palmer Events Center in Austin, Texas, the public conversation was the culmination of a weeklong campaign by the White House to promote its initiatives in technology. Alongside the premiere of several tech-centric initiatives, senior officials emphasized citizen access to newly released government tools, collaborations with private tech companies and the use of emerging technology to tackle complicated policy problems that are not being addressed by Congress. Related: Obama on encryption debate: There has to be some concession But as Obama discussed the benefits a strengthened relationship between the government and the tech industry, Smith questioned whether they could overcome their differences, exemplified in the legal battle between the FBI and Apple over access to the data on the San Bernardino shooters phone. Though Obama declined to comment on that specific case, he said those who think theres no middle ground in the debate specifically the privacy activists defending encryption are being unreasonable. President Obama gestures on stage President Obama speaking at SXSW. (Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for SXSW) The question we now have to ask is: If its now technologically possible to make an impenetrable device or system, where the encryption is so strong that theres no key or door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we disrupt a terrorist plot? he said. There has to be some concessions to the need to get into that information somehow. Story continues In many of his answers, Obama took the opportunity to appeal directly to some of the entrepreneurs and technologists in the audience, emphasizing the importance of their expertise in addressing what he said the governments responsibility to solve the hardest problems. We want to create a pipeline where theres a continuous flow of talent to help shape the government, Obama said, adding that he had just met with filmmakers and technologists about countering violent extremism online. This is not the first time members of the Obama administrations digital team have appealed to the technologists of SXSW to aid the government. Last year, U.S. digital service administrator Mikey Dickerson, the former Google engineer who helped revamped the disastrous Healthcare.gov website, emphasized the need for experienced technologists in the White House. Related: Meet Obamas big data dude Some of you, not all of you, are working right now on another app for people to share pictures of food or a social network for dogs, he wrote in a Medium post afterwards. I am here to tell you that your country has a better use for your talents. Jason Goldman, the White House chief digital officer who, in 2009, helped launch Twitter at this very same festival, says that Obamas call for tech aid should appeal to those Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who are looking for a higher purpose. Its about how we can rely on all sectors and all parts of American life to take on big challenges and think creatively about how to solve problems that maybe seem too hard, he told Yahoo News. People can show up and make things better for themselves, their neighbors, their communities. Thats what it means to be a citizen in this world. Related: White House enlists Silicon Valley to solve a low-tech problem: Affordable diapers Some of the programs the White House announced this week included an open-data project to share information among federal, state and local governments; a partnership with the e-commerce startup, Jet, to make diapers more affordable for the charities that distribute them to poor families; and a new mandate that would require the federal government to share some of its source code with the public. While what were talking about here today is technology, this isnt just a story about technology for technologys sake, said Kristie Canegallo, White House deputy chief of staff, in a press call Thursday afternoon. This is about how we can improve the role of government and ensure that its delivering the best services for the American people. SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's foreign minister, Julie Bishop, will travel to Fiji on Sunday to meet Fijian prime minister Frank Bainimarama and survey the damage wrought by cyclone Winston, her office said. The cyclone, which was the worst storm ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, hit the South Pacific archipelago last month, killing 43 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless. Three weeks later, more than 25,000 Fijians remain in evacuation centers, according to the latest report from Fiji's National Emergency Operation Centre. During her visit Bishop will also meet Fiji's foreign minister, Ratu Kubuabola, and disaster management minister, Inia Seruiratu, as well as Australian aid workers there. Australia has committed A$15 million to the recovery effort and deployed its largest navy vessel, the HMAS Canberra, to Fiji with 60 tonnes of emergency relief supplies. (Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Robert Birsel) Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and bestselling author. Her recent book is "Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants," published by Columbia Global Reports. This gags me. So said Elizabeth Warren in response to a Quora user, who asked, What do you think are the real reasons that no Wall Street executives have been prosecuted for fraud as a result of the 2008 financial crisis? Her answer, which she expounds on more thoroughly in her report Rigged Justice, is, Weak enforcement begins at the top. Ive always thought the lack of prosecution was way more complicated than a simple lack of will, in part because there is a difference between criminally prosecutable behavior and that which is morally reprehensible. But Im not sure whether well ever know the real answer. Newly public documents from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission show that the FCIC referred a handful of matters to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. Most of the time, nothing happened. In the cases where something did happen, our modern system of justicethe special one that applies to big business, that ismeans that those of us on the outsidecitizens, on whose behalf justice is supposed to be servedwill never know the underlying truth. Don't we at least deserve to understand? A little background: The FCIC was set up to investigate the causes of the financial crisis. The commission didnt have either the authority or the resources to do a criminal investigation. But as the documents show, a number of mattersinvolving Goldman Sachs, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Fannie Maewere referred to the Attorney General. No criminal prosecutions arose from any of those. (In Citigroups case, the SEC settled with the company and two executives in the fall of 2010 for a paltry sum. The Commission drily noted, The SECs civil settlement ignores the executives running the company and Board members responsible for overseeing it. Indeed, by naming only the CFO and the head of investor relations, the SEC appears to pin blame on those who speak a companys line, rather than those responsible for writing it.) Story continues Why? Well, really, we have no idea. The FCIC also referred what Ive always thought was the area in which Wall street had the most exposure to the criminal authorities. Thats what Wall Street firms told investors they were buying when they bought mortgage backed securities. Or as the FCIC labeled it, Potential Fraud: False and Misleading Representations about Loan Underwriting Standards by UBS and Other Issuers. (UBS is mentioned specifically only because the FCIC first discovered what was happening by looking at UBS.) Back in 2010, FCIC investigators found that a firm called Clayton Holdings, which was hired by Wall Street firms to investigate the mortgages that were being packaged into securities, was finding that they were not what they were supposed to be. Clayton examined almost a million mortgages, according to the FCICs analysis, and found that almost 30% failed to meet the underwriting standards that had been set, like the amount of money the borrower had put down, and didn't have other factors that might compensate for that. And yet, Wall Street waived almost 40% of those questionable loans, sticking them into securities anyway. (Clayton kept track of the waivers in order to protect themselves from potential liability.) The banks didnt tell investors. "In some cases we felt that we were potted plants," Keith Johnson, president of Clayton Holdings, told Reuters at one point. It seems that in the run up to the crisis, the big banks were doing their best to play ostrich. In its public report, the FCIC wrote, Only a small portionas little as 2% to 3%of the loans in any deal were sampled. When those loans turned up turnips, the banks didn't do the logical thing, and have Clayton go investigate a bigger sample. Instead, they hid their heads in the sandand didn't bother to inform their investors of any of this. Prospectuses for the ultimate investors in the mortgage-backed securities did not contain this information, or information on how few loans were reviewed, raising the question of whether the disclosures were materially misleading, in violation of the securities laws, the FCIC wrote in its report. The newly disclosed documents go into even more detail about why this might have violated the law. In a document entitled Material Misstatements and Omissions in Various RMBS Offering Documents, the FCIC laid out a potential case. Securities laws require sellers to adequately describe for potential investors what they are offering, including the risks which may be associated with making such an investment. If the seller makes a false or misleading statement of (or omits to state) a material fact in a prospectus, it can result in the issuer of the securities and underwriters being liable to investors and becoming subject to federal prosecution. The prospectuses and other offering materials used in connection the sale of residential mortgage backed securities in a substantial number of offerings between 2006 and 2007 (and maybe before), may have contained false statements and omissions relating to disclosures about the credit risks and origination standards of the underlying mortgage loans. The FCIC went on to note that while the banks did disclose that they might include loans that didnt meet the stated criteria, they didnt disclose just how many loans that was. And if a loan didnt meet the stated criteria, there were supposed to be compensating factors. If there werent compensating factorsor if the banks hadnt even bothered to look to know if there were compensating factorswell, then this was a false statement. And if the statement was material, there could be a violation of the federal securities laws. Or as the FCIC put it, there were two possible areas of misrepresentationfailure to disclose the gross numbers [of] waivers of underwriting standards, and inaccuracy in disclosing that not all waived loans had confirmed compensating factors. People have been sent to jail for less. See Enron. What happened then? Well, in this case, not nothing. The big banks have paid a lot of shareholders money to make this go away. The Wall Street Journal just did a remarkable tally, and found out that the big banks have, to date, paid $110 billion in mortgage-related fines, many stemming from the Justice Departments investigations. (The Journals examination of where the money has gone is a scandal in and of itself, but thats another story.) Take a closer look at Morgan Stanley, which settled with the Justice Department on February 11, agreeing to pay $2.6 billion. (This is one of the smaller settlements, but its also the most recent one.) According to the statement of facts that accompanied the settlement, Morgan Stanley did not disclose to securitization investors that employees of Morgan Stanley received information that, in certain instances, loans that did not comply with underwriting guidelines and lacked adequate compensating factors and/or had understated loan to value ratios were included in the RMBS sold and marketed to investors. In other words, Morgan Stanley knew bad things, and it did not inform investors who were buying the securities it created of those bad things. The statement of facts also illustrates how Morgan Stanley overrode Clayton. For instance, Clayton flagged a cash out refinance loan made to a checker at a florist shop, who said she had an income of $9000 a month. Morgan Stanley overrode the decision. In announcing the settlementwhich the State of New York signed onto as wellBenjamin Mizer, the head of the Justice Department Civil Division, said, Those who contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 cannot evade responsibility for their misconduct. Oh, but yes, they can! There is not a single name in the entire statement of facts. Bad deeds were done, but no human being did them, and that responsibility that could not be evaded was born by the banks shareholders, not by anyone actually employed by the bank. (A caveat: The document says that it does not release either the firm or any individual employees from criminal charges. But to date, those have been totally empty words.) Im not arguing that individuals or the banks for sure should have been prosecuted. Morgan Stanley, along with all the other banks, clearly was able to marshal some evidence that no matter how horrendous their behavior was from an ethical standpoint, no one broke any laws. Or as Justice noted in the statement of facts, The United States believes that there is an evidentiary basis to compromise potential legal claims by the United States against Morgan Stanley for violations of federal laws in connection with the packaging, marketing, sale, structuring, arrangement and issuance of these RMBS. What this means is that the Justice Department wasnt sure that a case against Morgan Stanley was winnable. So the two sides hammered out a settlement, every single word of which you can bet was heavily negotiated. The Justice Department gets money, and gets to trumpet a victory, and Morgan Stanley and its employees get to walk away. More broadly, thats what has happened with all the banks. And the rest of us? Well, we dont know whether the big banks bought off the US government, or whether the US government extorted the banks. Were left with no real answers as to why no one could be prosecuted in a crisis that defined our times. Now THAT makes me gag. By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama took part in a panel of Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Geneva on Friday, addressing a full auditorium about Chinese repression in his native Tibet despite Beijing having urged people to shun the event. China wrote this week to diplomats and U.N. officials calling on them not to attend the panel at Geneva's Graduate Institute, saying it opposed the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader's appearance at all venues due to his "separatist activities". "One part of the human brain usually develops common sense. Some of these (Chinese) hardliners, that part of brain is missing," the crimson-robed Dalai Lama, 80, told the audience of students and diplomats. Earlier he told reporters: "Wherever my name is there they usually criticise and protest. That's quite now routine, normal, nothing special." China's Foreign Ministry said in statement it had lodged a protest with the United States, which along with Canada had sponsored the event, and that it had expressed its "strong dissatisfaction" with Washington. The Dalai Lama is not a purely religious figure, but somebody who has engaged in "anti-China separatist activities" for a long period, the ministry said. "He was the biggest serf owner in old Tibet, and has no qualifications at all to talk about human rights," it added, referring to the period before what China calls its "peaceful liberation" of the remote Himalayan region in 1950. The United Nations also needs to respect the principles of its own charter and respect and support efforts of member states to maintain their sovereignty and territorial integrity, it added. The two-hour panel was moderated by U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore, along with laureates from Yemen and Iran. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Communist rule. Beijing blames him for unrest in Tibetan areas and self-immolations that have taken more than 140 lives since 2011, and says he seeks independence for his homeland. He denies the charges, and says he only wants genuine autonomy for Tibet. A Buddhist group leading a global campaign of harassment against the Dalai Lama has called off its demonstrations and disbanded, according to a statement on its website. A Reuters investigation revealed in December that the International Shugden Community (ISC) was backed by Chinas ruling Communist Party. The Dalai Lama told Reuters on Friday he was aware of the decision by the ISC to disband. He also told journalists he had not yet received an official invitation to visit Taiwan, but it was up to the government of the self-ruled democratic island which Beijing claims is an integral part of China. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Andrew Roche, Robert Birsel) BAMAKO (Reuters) - British American Tobacco has signed a deal with Malian state tobacco company Sonatam to produce and distribute BAT's Dunhill International cigarettes for the West African market, Sonatam's chief told state radio on Saturday. "With the production of Dunhill International in Mali, Sonatam's production will be brought to 3.2 billion cigarettes compared to 1.7 billion currently," Issouf Traore said. BAT will invest 7 billion CFA francs ($11.90 million) by 2020 to upgrade the firm's production facilities. The upgrade will create 600 jobs, 200 of which are permanent, said Traore. ($1 USD = 588.38 CFA francs) (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Catherine Evans) Photo: Yahoo Newsroom David Ong, a Member of Parliament for Bukit Batok and a Peoples Action Party member (PAP), has announced his resignation from both Parliament and the party. In explaining his decision, he told The Sunday Times: I feel that its the right thing to do to step down for the best interests of the party, my constituents and family. There is personal indiscretion on my part which I deeply regret. I would appreciate if you can give me and my family the privacy to heal and rebuild. In a note on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loongs Facebook page, Lee said that he accepted Ongs resignation and thanked him for his work in strengthening the Bukit Batok community. Lee also said that a by-election for the Bukit Batok Single-Member Constituency (SMC) seat will be called in due course. He added that Desmond Lee, Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs and National Development and MP for Jurong GRC, would take care of Bukit Batok residents in the meantime. Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that Ongs resignation was totally unexpected and that the PAPs priority would be to ensure that Bukit Batok residents remain in good hands until the by-election. In a statement from the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), its secretary-general Chee Soon Juan said that the SDP looks forward to contesting the by-election that will be called in the constituency. In the case of a vacancy occurring in a single-seat ward, the prime minister is obligated under Singapores Constitution to call for a by-election within a reasonable time unless there is a general election approaching. Ong entered politics during the 2011 General Election and was elected as an MP for Jurong GRC. He later ran for and won the Bukit Batok SMC seat in last years general election, beating the Singapore Democratic Partys Sadasivam Veriyah and independent candidate Samir Salim Neji. His mid-term departure from politics is the first to have occurred since 2012. In February that year, Workers Party (WP) MP Yaw Shin Leong was expelled from the WP following rumours of an extramarital affair. This led to a by-election for the single-seat Hougang ward, which was held in May the same year and was won my WP newcomer Png Eng Huat. Story continues In December 2012, parliamentary speaker Michael Palmer of the PAP also resigned over an extramarital affair, leaving the single-seat Punngol East constituency up for grabs. The January 2013 by-election saw a four-way fight, with the WPs candidate Lee Li Lian emerging victorious. She later lost the seat to the PAPs Charles Chong in last years general election. (Below is the exchange of letters between Ong and Lee) Nairobi (AFP) - Security forces in Burundi on Saturday paraded a man accused of being a Rwandan spy before journalists, as tensions between the two countries simmer amid a ten-month-long political crisis. The man, whose name was given as Corporal Rucyahintare Cyprien, was arrested on Monday in Rushenya on the Rwandan border, according to police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye. "He was on a spying mission and it was the third such mission he carried out in Burundi," said Nkurikiye, who added that the missions were intended to "destabilise" the country. Relations between Burundi and Rwanda are at a low ebb, with Bujumbura and the United Nations accusing Kigali of supporting Burundian rebels. Burundi was plunged into crisis following President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third term which he went on to win in a July 2015 election. The man, in his thirties, wore a red tracksuit and had no visible signs of abuse, according to an AFP photographer. He "confessed" to journalists in kinyarwanda, an official language in neighbouring Rwanda, accepting that he had entered the country for the purposes of espionage. The man previously entered Burundi in May 2015 to help extract the plotters of a failed coup, and once again in November 2015 to gather information for attacks against VIPs in the country, according to Nkurikiye. He was presented to the media at the offices of the National Intelligence Service (SNR), an agency regularly accused of human rights abuses, torture and extra-judicial killings. Officials alleged that his latest mission in Burundi was to negotiate with an order of nuns to determine if they would be willing to hide 200 fighters involved in attacks in the country. More than 400 people have been killed since the violence erupted in April and more than 240,000 have fled. Thousands of Rwandans who lived in Burundi have fled the country since the start of the crisis after several arrests within their community. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba) (AFP) - A length of razor wire dangles onto a chain-link fence, clinking gently in the warm breeze. Long, thick grass smothers what once was a gravel prison yard. Animal droppings are everywhere. Over the past 14 years, nature has won control of Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray, the notorious holding center briefly home to nearly 300 detainees pulled from the battlefield after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Gone are the inmates and their orange jumpsuits. Their tiny, open-air cages are now knotted with weeds and the wooden guard towers surrounding the facility look like they're about to collapse. But just a short drive away, on the other side of a shrub-covered hill, a different story is playing out. Down a closely guarded access road, where an "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" sign greets visitors, the extensive prison complex that succeeded Camp X-Ray remains home to dozens of terror suspects. Despite President Barack Obama's repeated efforts to close it since taking office in 2009, this facility is staying open -- at least for now. Last month, Obama handed Congress a Pentagon proposal to shut the prison which he has called a stain on America's conscience that catalyzes jihadi anger against the United States. But Republican foes immediately dismissed the plan, primarily because it seeks to bring high-risk detainees from this remote naval base in southeastern Cuba to the United States -- even though such a move is illegal under current US law. Further dampening expectations, Republicans this week seized on a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that found a recent increase in ex-detainees suspected of rejoining the extremist fight against America and its allies. Of the 676 men released under Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, 118 are suspected of re-engaging, the report found, noting that further recidivism was likely among those currently slated for release. Story continues "We assess that some detainees currently at GTMO (Guantanamo) will seek to re-engage in terrorist or insurgent activities after they are transferred," the report states. Today, 91 inmates remain. Thirty-five are approved for transfer to another country, but the process of putting security guarantees in place is painstakingly slow. The rest face ongoing -- and indefinite -- detention. - 'Nothing to hide' - AFP got a tour of Guantanamo Bay this week during a visit by General Joe Dunford, the US military's top officer. Dunford visited the two main prison camps, where he saw several detainees and met the troops who guard them. He said he was pleased with how the facility is being run. "The basic operation of Gitmo, I am proud of it," he said, using the naval base's nickname. "I am proud of the young men and women who are actually doing really hard work every day." The four-star general chose not to weigh in on the political debate swirling around the prison, but said he was satisfied inmates are well cared for, despite numerous claims to the contrary from former prisoners and rights groups. "When it comes to American values demonstrated on a day-to-day basis, we don't have to really hide what's going on in Gitmo from anybody," he said. Realistically, Obama has scant chance of closing Guantanamo during his remaining 10 months in office. He is considering an executive order to shut it, but such action would prove deeply controversial. And even if he were to succeed, a future US president could quickly reopen it. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump intends to fill Guantanamo with "bad dudes," and fellow conservatives, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, want to send Islamic State captives there. - Secret camp - Navy Captain Christopher Scholl, a military spokesman, said inmates follow Guantanamo news closely; they have access to some 300 channels, including Arabic-language broadcasters. "It was very calm," Scholl said of the day Obama announced his closure plan. "There was more curiosity of what's going to happen next, to see if they're going to go to the States." Most inmates currently are housed in two jails known as Camp 5, which opened in 2004, and Camp 6, which opened in 2006 at a cost of $37 million. Well-behaved detainees live in Camp 6 and have access to communal areas. The non-compliant inmates are kept at Camp 5, which has equipment to protect guards from "splashing" -- the grim practice of hurling bodily fluids and excrement at guards. The riskiest detainees, including the five men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks, are incarcerated at another, secret prison camp elsewhere on the base. Scholl said Obama's plans have had no impact on the prison's day-to-day workings. A force of about 2,000 guards and staff keep the facility running -- more than 20 workers per inmate. "It's business as usual right now," Scholl said. "Operationally, there are no changes." Oscar-winning British director who made his name with cult hit "Trainspotting" is reportedly looking to helm a big-screen adaptation of the Vietnam-set musical If as The Daily Mail claims, Boyle is in talks with production company Working Title, then he is clearly a director in demand. This week he has also been linked with an ambitious series on the FX channel "Trust" about the life and times of the Getty family and of course, he's still developing the sequel to his breakout hit "Trainspotting" which will mark its 20th anniversary this year. Actor Holt McCallany has been picked for one of the two leading roles in "Mind Hunter," the director's new project for the American content streaming site, claims The Hollywood Reporter. After six years in development, "Mind Hunter" has finally found its star. Already seen in David Fincher movies "Fight Club" and "Alien 3," Holt McCallany will step into the role of Bill Tench, one of two FBI agents who interview serial killers for help solving current murder cases. Although little known by the public, the American actor has already starred in the series "Blue Bloods" and "Heroes," as well as the 2015 movie "Concussion," alongside Will Smith. This year sees him hit the big screen in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" with Tom Cruise, scheduled for October 21, and in Clint Eastwood's "Sully," due September 9. Holt McCallany will be joined on the cast of "Mind Hunter" by Anna Torv ("Fringe") and Jonathan Groff ("Glee," "Looking") in supporting roles. Troy will star as Wendy, a psychologist who tracks criminals across the USA, while Groff will play Holden, an FBI special agent. Expected to air in 2017, the series -- produced by Fincher and Charlize Theron -- is based on "Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit" by John Douglas, a former FBI profiler who's thought to have inspired several famous characters of the big and small screens. These include the team of profilers in the series "Criminal Minds," Will Graham from "Hannibal," and Jack Crawford from the Thomas Harris novel, "The Silence of the Lambs," played onscreen by Harvey Keitel and Laurence Fishburne. "Mind Hunter" was initially developed for HBO before being picked up by Netflix in 2015. The drama will be the second collaboration between David Fincher and the American streaming site, three years after the arrival of "House of Cards," the director's first TV series and a first original content creation for Netflix. Season four of the acclaimed political drama starring Kevin Spacey started March 4. Tegucigalpa (AFP) - The deputy warden of Honduras' main prison was shot dead Friday in an ambush on his car, police said. Juan Andres Sanchez, who helped run the Marco Aurelio penitentiary to the north of the capital Tegucigalpa, was shot and killed just outside the city. Honduras, along with neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala, has one of the highest murder rates in the world. President Juan Orlando Hernandez has boosted police numbers since coming to power two years ago to combat rampant crime, with some success though he has said much more needs to be done. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has cancelled a rally in Chicago, calling off the event due to safety concerns after protesters packed into the arena where it was to take place. The announcement that Trump would postpone the rally for another day led the crowd inside the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion to break out into raucous cheers. Meanwhile, supporters of the candidate broke out into chants of "We want Trump! We want Trump!" There was no sign of Trump inside the arena on the college campus, where dozens of UIC faculty and staff had petitioned university administrators to cancel the rally. They cited concerns it would create a "hostile and physically dangerous environment" for students. Earlier, Donald Trump supporters and protesters alike have packed into an arena on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago for an evening rally with the Republican candidate for president. Many of those who were waiting in line to get into the Friday night event identified themselves as protesters. UIC student G.J. Pryor said he wanted to disrupt Trump's speech, adding he would only do so if he felt safe. Some Trump supporters walking toward the arena chanted, "USA! USA!" and "Illegal is illegal." One demonstrator shouted back, "Racist!" There's a heavy police presence outside the rally, with barricades and mounted police keeping most protesters and Trump supporters apart. Trump supporter Veronica Kowalkowsky says she has no ill will toward the protesters. But the 18-year-old says she has felt their ill will, adding: "I feel a lot of hate. I haven't said anything bad to anyone." Read More: Inside Hollywood's Quiet, Growing Support for Donald Trump Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) (AFP) - Equatorial Guinea will hold a presidential election on April 24 in which President Teodoro Obiang Nguema will seek to extend his 36 years in office with another seven-year term, official media announced. "Following consultation with the cabinet on Friday... I have decided that the presidential elections will be on April 24, 2016," Obiang said in a presidential decree read on state radio. Africa's longest serving ruler, 73-year-old Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea with an iron fist for nearly four decades. His regime has regularly come under fire from rights groups for violent suppression of opposition as well as for rampant corruption. He is almost certain to win the upcoming election, having been re-elected in 2009 with 95.37 percent of the vote. Campaigning will start in the central African nation on April 8, concluding April 22, according to the decree. The presidential election was originally scheduled for November and no reason was given for the delay. Obiang had declared his candidacy for another seven year term in November at a meeting of his ruling Democratic Party. He will face off against Gabriel Nse Obiang, considered to be the incumbent president's main rival, recently announcing his candidacy for the opposition CI party. Nse Obiang's national campaign tour was suspended Tuesday "until further notice" and five of his supporters were arrested after they were accused of assaulting a security officer at a public meeting two days earlier. President Obiang came to power in a coup in 1979, overthrowing the bloody rule of his uncle, Macias Nguema. His son, second vice president Teodorin Obiang, has been wanted in France since 2014 as part of a corruption probe. He is suspected of using public funds to buy assets and property in France worth several hundred million euros, according to a source close to the French investigation. By Karen Pierog (Reuters) - Steven Rhodes, a former federal bankruptcy judge who is now running the Detroit Public Schools (DPS), said on Friday he is prepared to close the debt-laden district next month if the Michigan Legislature fails to throw it a financial lifeline. Rhodes was appointed by Governor Rick Snyder last month as transition manager of the state's largest public school district. Lack of funding and mismanagement have left students to learn in cold and dirty classroom conditions. Asked by Reuters in a telephone interview what he would do if there is no legislative fix, Rhodes was blunt: "Close the schools." But he also said he had "the greatest confidence" that state lawmakers would take action over the next two weeks to prevent such an outcome. Rhodes cautioned there was no "Plan B" to avoid a shutdown once the district's money runs out on April 8. "It would be a disaster for the kids. It would be a disaster for parents. It would be a disaster for the city. It would be a disaster for the state. It can't happen. So I don't believe it will happen," he said. Rhodes oversaw the city of Detroit's historic bankruptcy before he retired from the bench last year. He has said DPS, which operates 97 schools for about 47,000 students, has money to pay teachers and other staff only through April 8 and that he will not ask them to work for free. DPS has $3.4 billion outstanding in debt and other obligations. Those include $1.5 billion of general obligation bonds issued through Michigan's school bond loan fund and a $1.3 billion unfunded pension liability to the Michigan Public Employee Retirement System. Despite being under state oversight since 2009, the school district has a $515 million operating deficit. Shutting down the schools presents its own problems, regardless of whether the district has any money left for operations. The Detroit Federation of Teachers, which represents 3,800 educators, called an emergency meeting with school union representatives for March 14 to formulate an action plan that could include an April 12 march on the state capitol, according to Ivy Bailey, the union's interim president. Story continues "This is kind of unprecedented," she said, referring to a possible shutdown. "We do have our legal department looking into it." Ruby Newbold, president of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees, which represents 289 DPS workers, said the only way Rhodes could legally shut down the district without violating the union's contract would be to lay off staff. But then DPS would have to cover those workers through unemployment insurance, she added. COUNTDOWN Not only is cash running short, but so is time for legislative action. State lawmakers go on break on March 25 and return on April 12. So far the Republican-controlled House and Senate have only held hearings on bills to create two entities - the Detroit Community District to run the schools and the current DPS to retire debt. The House and Senate bills are not identical, complicating passage. Governor Snyder is seeking $72 million annually over 10 years to fund the plan, using money from Michigan's share of a nationwide settlement with U.S. tobacco companies. He has also asked lawmakers for an immediate $50 million to enable DPS to continue to pay employees and vendors. Rhodes said DPS would not be helped by a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy filing, an extremely rare action for public school districts nationwide. "There's secured debt and guaranteed debt by the state," he said. "There's only $50 million in vendor debt that's unsecured debt that a bankruptcy could logically deal with. It's not worth it for that." In addition, Rhodes' contract with the state, which began on March 1 and could extend through Sept. 30, stipulates at his request that he would not take DPS to federal bankruptcy court. "When I left the court, I really promised myself and my colleagues that I would not appear before them really ever," he said. "If they do want to pursue a bankruptcy, of course they are perfectly welcome to do that. They'll just find someone else to do it." The former judge said he will leave his $18,750-a-month job as the district's transition manager once an appointed or elected school board takes control of DPS. "I think we can trust the people of Detroit to elect strong and qualified and effective school board leaders who will make the decisions necessary to allow public education in Detroit to succeed and compete with (charter schools)." (Reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Daniel Bases and Matthew Lewis) DUBAI (Reuters) - A former employee of the French embassy in Tehran has been arrested at the airport after arriving in Iran to visit her critically ill mother, the opposition website Kalemeh reported on Saturday. Nazak Afshar, 58, who has French-Iranian citizenship, had previously been arrested in 2009 on charges of spying and of acting against Iran's national security. Although she was put on trial at the time, no verdict was issued and she was freed following the intervention of the French government. She left the country the same year. Afshar had traveled to Iran to visit her mother after "doctors had given up hope of her recovery", the website said, without giving details of the ailment. The potential opening up to the West after last year's nuclear deal has alarmed Iranian hardliners and the arrest of Afshar and the detention of other people with dual citizenship appear to be part of a crackdown on what some officials have called Western infiltration. Siamak Namazi, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, was detained by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in October while visiting family. Baquer Namazi, Siamak's 80-year-old father who is also a dual citizen, was arrested in February on his arrival in Tehran. An Iranian-British former BBC journalist, Bahman Daroshafaei, was also detained in February but was released on bail three weeks later. Officials have yet to announce charges against them but Iran's judiciary spokesman said last month that most of the detained dual nationals face espionage charges. Iran does not recognize dual nationality. Tehran released four Iranian-Americans and one other U.S. citizen in January in a prisoner swap with the United States, which granted clemency to seven Iranians and dropped arrest orders for 14 others. (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Sami Aboudi and Andrew Bolton) By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian boy and his sister were killed in Hamas-controlled Gaza on Saturday when they were hit by fragments from a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft, medical officials said. The incident took place hours after militants launched rockets into Israel. An Israeli military statement said aircraft had targeted four militant training camps belonging to Hamas after four missiles landed in open areas in southern Israel on Friday night. No casualties were reported from the rocket strikes. Residents of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip said Yassin Abu Khoussa, 10, died after debris from the explosion hit his home, which is situated next to a militant training camp. His six-year-old sister, Israa, who was seriously wounded, later died in hospital, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said. The fatalities from air strikes in Gaza were the first since last October. The Israeli army said that since the beginning of the year and including Friday's salvo, seven rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said rogue militant groups had been responsible for the launchings. "We will not tolerate the disruption of calm and the daily life of the residents who live around the Gaza Strip ... which is why we reacted strongly against Hamas assets and we will act even more harshly if these attempts continue," Yaalon said. Gaza rocket fire has tapered off significantly since the 2014 war when militants fired thousands of rockets and mortar rounds into Israel. Israeli attacks killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, while Palestinian fighters killed six Israeli civilians and 67 soldiers. In a rare threat-implied statement against Israel since the Gaza war, Hamas's armed wing said it would "not accept (Israel's) shedding of the blood of our children." But it stopped short of vowing retaliation. Beset by a months-long surge in street attacks by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Israel has little desire to see a new flare-up in Gaza, where Hamas has mostly held its fire in the past 18 months. An Israeli official said that in its effort to tackle Hamas's attempts at incitement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to French President Francois Hollande on Friday and that French satellite firm Eutelsat had taken Hamas's al-Aqsa television station off air. But Gaza Strip residents said the channel was still being received via other satellites. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Greg Mahlich) Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - A delegation of Hamas leaders from the Gaza Strip entered neighbouring Egypt Saturday, seeking to patch up relations which soured with the 2013 overthrow of Islamist Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi. Gaza security sources told AFP that Mahmud Zahar, Khalil al-Haya, Imad al-Alami and Nizar Awadallah passed through the southern Gaza Rafah terminal, the only crossing point with the enclave not controlled by Israel. They were heading to Cairo for talks with intelligence chiefs on relations between the sides. Former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who deposed Morsi, won presidential elections in 2014 on a pledge to wipe out Islamist militants. The militant Islamic Hamas, which rules Gaza, has its origins in the Muslim Brotherhood movement which is outlawed in Egypt. On Sunday, Egypt's Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar said both organisations were involved in last year's assassination of the country's top prosecutor. Since taking office, the Sisi government has accused Hamas of aiding jihadist groups in the Sinai Peninsula who have repeatedly attacked Egyptian security forces. Egypt has largely kept its border with Gaza closed since 2013 and has destroyed hundreds of Palestinian tunnels under the frontier used to smuggle commercial goods, cash, people and, allegedly, weapons. The sun sets slowly over the Mediterranean and, leaning on a small fishing boat, Giusy Nicolini looks nervously at the horizon. She is not waiting for a ship to appear; rather, she hopes that none will. We live in a constant state of fear here, she says. I never thought, when I took this job, that I would have to count so many bodies. Nicolini is the mayor of Lampedusa, a quaint little island at the southernmost tip of Italy that has become the front line of Europes war on migration. In October 2013, more than 360 would-be immigrants died trying to reach Lampedusa, and the deathly tide hasnt stopped: Thousands of people have drowned in the surrounding waters since, including the 800 men, women and children who died in April when their ship capsized. Just 70 miles from Tunisia and less than 200 from Tripoli, Libya, Lampedusa has long been a life raft for migrants trying to reach Europe. But in recent years, the numbers of would-be migrants has surged, as poverty and instability escalate in the Horn of Africa, the crisis in Syria worsens and Libya, once a kind of refuge, itself descends into chaos. During the first four months of this year, 40,000 people crossed the Mediterranean, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) almost four times as many as in all of 2012, the year Nicolini became mayor. In response to the surge, Malta has cut back on rescue operations, while Spain has erected miles of fence. Its here that Lampedusas mayor has made her stand. Even as her European coastal counterparts have scrapped lifesaving programs in favor of closed borders, Nicolini has pushed hard for a more compassionate, humanitarian approach. Not only does she welcome the migrants to the island, but she also demands that more be done for them including, for example, establishing humanitarian corridors that would make their passage safe. The thing with human rights is you cant make exceptions, she says. We Europeans cant expect to have ours respected until we acknowledge theirs. In saying this, Nicolini has made herself a continental lightning rod. The EU is based on the idea of free movement of people, goods and currency within Europes borders, but many have grown queasy about opening the gates to others. Generally, the rule is that the farther north you go, the queasier the Europeans get. Germany, for instance, recently witnessed huge protests against immigration, and even in Sweden, the anti-immigration party is fast gaining political momentum. Italys Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, on the other hand, has advocated more spending on search and rescue and for better coordination of asylum provision. An aerial view of Lampedusa. An aerial view of Lampedusa, Italy. Source: Getty Even as Nicolini helps define the European debate on immigration and wins accolades from Amnesty International and the pope her future on Lampedusa is uncertain. Some residents accuse her of turning their 8-square-mile island into a free port for migrants. Lampedusa cant afford it, they say: It needs to invest in things that pay off, like tourism, instead of devoting its resources to refugees. But today Nicolini is not on Lampedusa. She is on Linosa, an even smaller island where she is also mayor. Shes been stranded for three days: This patch of cacti and volcanic rock has no airport, and boats will not make the passage back to Lampedusa if there is too much wind. She does not mind. The enduring quiet of this sunny little seaside town reminds the 54-year-old of the Lampedusa she grew up in, before the planes full of tourists and the boatloads of immigrants began to pour in. I am loving the forced vacation, she says. I am always saying I need a break and here, I have no choice. *** Except for a few fishermen, most of Lampedusas 4,500 inhabitants live off tourism. A glance at its stunning beaches and shimmering turquoise waters explains why. The way the sunlight falls on sandstone imparts something of an African feel, and closing your eyes and breathing the hot salt air, you might easily imagine yourself on the coast of Tunisia. You wouldnt expect a humanitarian crisis here, but the black bodies regularly wash up on its pale shores, and the fishermen go out to sea every day dreading the prospect of returning with shipwreck survivors rather than sardines. The Mediterranean is the worlds most dangerous border. Since 2000, some 23,000 people have died trying to make the crossing, and these days, some 2,500 migrants arrive on Lampedusa by the month. Just last week a boatful of migrants from Libya, whod survived a gas tank explosion onboard, arrived, many of them badly burned. In response, Nicolini has welcomed them, sheltered them, lobbied the Italian government for them. Shes also organized more funerals than she can remember. She works all the time and systematically refuses social invitations and press visits. That is why Im surprised when she finally rides into the interview on a bicycle, looking pretty relaxed. Nicolini is blond, petite and modish, wearing a trenchcoat and hiding her bird-like features behind a pair of Emporio Armani sunglasses and a thick layer of makeup. Shes married but doesnt have children, which she says is a good thing because I havent had to sacrifice them to this job. She speaks a lot and loudly, stopping only to sip espresso or pull on her cigarette. Migrant men from Nigeria relax by the sea after taking a swim on April 22, 2015 in Lampedusa, Italy Migrant men from Nigeria relax by the sea after taking a swim on April 22, 2015, off the coast of Lampedusa. Source: Dan Kitwood/Getty Nicolini grew up in the days before Lampedusa was on anyones radar. Shed spend carefree summers on the beach or exploring the islands cliffs and caves with her siblings. As a leftist teen, she studied political science in Sicily, and after graduating, began to work for Lampedusas nature reserve. She ended up directing it for more than two decades. When she ran for mayor in 2012, it was at her friends urging, she says the island had suffered an epidemic of corrupt mayors, including one that would be sentenced to a five-year jail term and she did not expect to win. But upon taking up the small, battered-looking city hall in 2012, Nicolini did not imagine shed go from protecting migratory birds to migrant people. Under her leadership, Lampedusa has become one of the Mediterraneans most efficient migrant ports able to process and shelter up to 700 migrants at a time (though its center has often seen as many as 2,000). Shes had to beg Rome for money to build and fix infrastructure, and she has had some success there, including a recent $22 million appropriation. Shes also won praise from human rights organizations, even the pope, as the awards that cover her office walls indicate. The UNHCR refers to the Lampedusa model for sheltering refugees and is trying to encourage other towns to adopt it. The islands administration could not do any more to help these people, says Alessandra Romano, Lampedusas UNHCR representative. Its truly exemplary. Some of Lampedusas residents, however, hate all this that their islands name has become synonymous with poor huddled masses, and they resent Nicolini for it. Many feel their mayor puts the needs of the newcomers before their own and their own needs are plenty. Unemployment is high. Infrastructure is weak: Since the island doesnt have a maternity ward, for example, women must pay thousands of euros to give birth in Sicily. Worse, many believe that the migrant crisis will threaten the islands biggest revenue source: tourism. Nicolini doesnt care about our problems, says Salvatore Cappello, a local restaurateur who heads Lamepedusas businessman association. She basks in the international attention on her fight for immigrants, he says, but what about us? Indeed, outside of July and August, the town looks a bit deserted and sad, like the set of an abandoned Wild West movie. Most hotels are closed, and postcards and souvenirs gather dust in kiosks while journalists huddle on terraces awaiting the next boat. Migrants walk up and down the main street in small groups, trying to score free cigarettes or SIM cards. The islands big yellow church is often empty, except for a few Eritreans thanking God for helping them reach Europe or mourning those they lost along the way. Nicolini says she is trying hard to change Lampedusas image from a migrant destination to an unspoiled nature reserve, a place where visitors can see sea turtles laying eggs on the beach or dolphins surfing the waves, or simply lounge by the sea. She points out that TripAdvisor just named Lampedusa the third-best Italian island in its Travelers Choice picks. But to succeed, she says, she needs all of Europes help. If Northern European countries really want to help us deal with immigration, they should send their tourists here, she says. Nonstop humanitarian efforts require a strong economy, she says. Giusi Nicolini Mayor Giusy Nicolini. Source: Daniel Mendez/Redux Northern Europe, however, has other plans. After Aprils record number of deaths, the EU responded inadequately, in Nicolinis opinion. Yes, it tripled the funds for its new sea patrol mission, Operation Triton, but Nicolini points out that Triton is a border control task force, not a search and rescue one. The mayor wants the EU to restore Operation Mare Nostrum an Italian-led yearlong search and rescue mission that saved thousands of lives in 2014. The European Parliament has granted her an audience, but for the most part, the EU has doubled down on border control keeping immigrants out instead of taking on a humanitarian burden and distributing it across states. The Dublin Regulation is a prime example: It states that new arrivals must seek asylum in the first country in which they register (by fingerprint), instead of where they hope to end up. The system puts a huge burden on southern countries and small nations like Malta. If migrants arrive in Italy, for example, but have family in the U.K. or Sweden, they try to escape. Some even cut their fingertips with razor blades. Instead, Nicolini says all European countries should help to create humanitarian corridors and then distribute the newcomers among them. Right now she is designing a way to bypass some of the European red tape: a Lampedusa-led coalition of borderland locales, from Lesbos in Greece to Calais in France to Ceuta in Spain. The goal is to unite forces, share resources and lobby the European Parliament for immigration reform. If we dont change, we are sentencing all these people to death, says the environmentalist turned migrant advocate. Her voice, usually composed and stern, cracks when she speaks about the parade of pain visiting her island the burned men who arrived last week, the shipwreck survivor who still calls for her husband in her dreams, the children whose little floating bodies are the first to be found. Nicolini sighs. The same Mediterranean that gave birth to the European civilization is now witnessing its destruction, she says. *** The wind has died down and its time for Nicolini to return from her forced vacation. When the first glimmer of rose appears in the sky, Nicolini gets on the big rusty ferryboat. Her expression hardens as the vessel enters Lampedusas harbor. She is thinking of the pile of to-dos waiting in her office. She is thinking that its a crucial time, what with the worlds spotlight on the immigration issue. Other countries are promising help and support, and the recent speech she gave to the European Parliament on refugee policy was much lauded. Change may be on the horizon, but only distantly. The same boat that brings her to Lampedusa from Linosa will later today take 40 migrant minors to Sicily and then the mainland. Many of those kids will end up living in the streets of Rome or Naples, undocumented and uncared for. Until Europe finds its humanity, she says, its just a matter of time until the next tragedy. Related Articles TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's government is considering appointing Japan Post Bank Co <7182.T> President Masatsugu Nagato as the successor to head the bank's parent company, Japan Post Holdings Co <6178.T>, local media reported on Saturday. Reuters reported earlier this month that Japan Post Holdings Chief Executive Taizo Nishimuro is set to resign in coming weeks amid speculation over the 80-year-old CEO's health following his hospitalization nearly a month ago. The government, which still owns more than 80 percent of Japan Post Holdings, is in the final stages of selecting Nagato, Sankei newspaper reported, without citing sources. Nagato will replace Nishimuro as early as next month, the report said. Japan Post officials were not immediately available for comment. Nagato, 67, former Mizuho Financial Group <8411.T> executive and chairman of Citibank Japan, was recruited to run Japan Post Bank in May last year. (Reporting by Taiga Uranaka; Editing by Sam Holmes) Idomeni (Greece) (AFP) - Greece said Saturday it aimed to "resolve" the migrant build-up on the Macedonian border within a week, as Chinese artist Ai Weiwei hauled a white grand piano to the muddy frontier to highlight their plight. As the rain poured down on Idomeni camp, where some 12,000 people are stranded in miserable conditions, a surreal scene played out with Syrian refugee Nour Alkhzam sitting at the piano and playing for 20 minutes under cover of plastic sheeting held up by Ai and a handful of others. The stunt was the latest in a series of projects by the dissident artist to shine a spotlight on the people caught up in Europe's worst migrant crisis since World War II. With the human suffering worsening at the border after Balkans states closed their borders, Dimitris Vitsas, the Greek minister charged with coordinating the refugee flow, said Athens would try to convince people to move to other reception centres across the country. By the end of next week, there would be "50,000 spots" available across the country, he said. "I hope the situation at Idomeni is resolved within a week without recourse to force," he told Mega TV, saying some 400 people had already moved to other centres in northern Greece on Friday. Earlier in the day, around 200 people demonstrated in Idomeni over conditions at the camp where they have been waiting in vain for the Macedonian border to open so they can continue their journey to central and northern Europe. Chanting "open the border", they staged a sit-in protest at a cross-border railway line, according to an AFP photographer at the scene. The border closures have left thousands, many of them children, forced to camp out in increasingly squalid conditions in the area around the Idomeni crossing. As Europe's diplomats rushed to try and find answers to the crisis, a 44-year-old Syrian refugee began a hunger strike to highlight the ongoing suffering at the frontier. Nazim Serhan, who travelled to Europe with his three children, is hoping to join his wife in Germany where she is battling cancer. Story continues "I want to see her, just for one day," he told journalists. - 'Art will overcome war' - Also hoping to reach Germany was the 24-year-old refugee playing at the piano, whose husband is already living there. "She has been victimised by these wars. She has not had the chance to touch a piano in three years," Ai said, explaining the piano as an "attempt to create an opportunity" for her. He said the aim was to offer a new image of the people caught up in the crisis. "We want to reveal a new image of them, to relay possibility, art and imagination," he said. "It tells the world that art will overcome the war." There are more than 42,000 migrants and refugees currently in Greece, of which around 7,700 are on islands in the Aegean Sea. Many more, most fleeing the Syrian conflict, are still trying to reach the Greek islands by taking dangerous boat trips from Turkey. The Balkan border closures have caused a huge headache for the government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. This week, EU and Turkish leaders agreed a controversial plan that would see Syrians sent back from Greece to Turkey, in exchange for the EU resettling Syrian refugees from Turkish camps in a "one-for-one" swap. But the plan, due to be finalised at a EU summit on March 17, has come under fire with the UN's top officials responsible for refugee and rights questioning whether the mass expulsions would be legal. French President Francois Hollande on said Saturday the EU must not grant Turkey any concessions on human rights or visas in exchange for guarantees to stem the flow of migrants to Europe. "There cannot be any concessions on the matter of human rights or the criteria for visa liberalisation," Hollande told reporters ahead of the resumption next week of tough negotiations between Turkey and the EU in Brussels. Life is hard for the free-thinking and independent musicians these days. Revenue is still largely concentrated in the hands of music's 1% so for many artists and platforms, it's get creative or die. One such outlet, FBi Radio an Australian independent, non-for-profit radio station dedicated to supporting local artists is doing just that. On Thursday, they released a new batch of art from some of indie music's finest to support its annual "Brush with Fame" fundraising drive. Grimes, Run the Jewels, Alabama Shakes, Mac , TV on the Radio, Thundercat and Vic Mensa have all contributed their own artwork, which is currently be auctioned off to the highest bidder on e. It seems there is a reason Run the Jewels raps rather than paints but still their canvases, and all those offered, have their charm. Check some of the choice pieces below; you can bid on these and other artists' contributions here. Grimes Alabama Shakes Best Coast Future Islands The Internet Killer Mike (of Run the Jewels) El-P (of Run the Jewels) Courtney Barnett Vic Mensa Mac DeMarco DIIV Tegucigalpa (AFP) - Honduran authorities looking for new ways to combat gangs terrorizing the country are waging an operation called "Avalanche" to seize bank accounts, properties and even a small hospital from wealthy crime bosses. Already 137 accounts, a dozen houses, 188 vehicles and the hospital in the northern city of San Pedro Sula have been confiscated from suspected chiefs of the feared Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13, according to the head of the police investigation division, Ricardo Castro. The total value of the assets seized so far is $9 million, with most or all of it believed to have come from the extortion of owners of shops and public transport companies, he said. The police operation, which began February 23, is continuing with no defined end date. Twelve gang leaders and associates have been arrested to date in the swoops, including the mayor of the town of Talanga, east of the capital Tegucigalpa, and a former police officer. The effort to scoop up the ill-gotten gains runs in parallel with an armed crackdown by police and soldiers to curb gang activities. Those confrontations have netted more young members from the rival 18 gang than ones from MS-13. "We felt that MS-13 was not being adequately addressed and so we adopted a different strategy, attacking its economic resources," a prosecutor, Oscar Chinchilla, explained. A criminologist, Arabeska Sanchez, told AFP that "the government has finally found a formula to control crime and dismantle the gangs' structures." He added: "For the first time, we know where the money from the extortions has gone, and this looks like a successful operation." The manager of a transport company, Jorge Lanza, welcomed the new tack taken by the police. "Whatever method that can end this sad situation (of extortion) is welcome," he said. "This operation 'Avalanche' should be made permanent, not just for a week or two," he added, explaining that police and military protection on public transport was only occasional. Lanza said more than 80 people died last year in assaults on buses by gang members angry that owners of the companies refused to pay their "war tax" of $45 per bus per week. Up to five different gangs, including MS-13 and 18, were behind the extortions. According to Honduras' national anti-extortion taskforce, last year 669 youths demanding the "war tax" were arrested. More than 4,000 people were victims of extortion. Nicht Ihr Computer? Dann konnen Sie fur die Anmeldung ein Fenster zum privaten Surfen offnen. Weitere Informationen On Friday, Hulk Hogan concluded all testimony meant to establish that Gawker violated his privacy and publicity rights in October 2012 through the posting of his sex tape. On the verge of wrapping Hogan's case, the plaintiff's legal team called upon a parade of experts to discuss the benefit that Gawker received from a video seen by millions. The testimony wasn't nearly as engrossing as Hogan's own moments on the witness stand, where the celebrity described just how a sex tape featuring him sleeping with his friend's wife came to be and how Gawker's publishing of it turned his "world upside down." Nor was it as intendedly sickening as what jurors heard in taped depositions of Gawker staffers. But the presentation of Hogan's experts, who talked rather tediously about digital marketing and web analytics, was certainly directed to the jury's ears with a clear goal. If those jurors ultimately decide to punish Gawker, they will need to arrive at some way to calculate damages. And so, Shanti Shunn, a digital marketing expert, told the jury that Hogan's sex tape was viewed nearly 4.5 million times on of Gawker.com, and Jeff Anderson, a specialist in intellectual property valuation, gave his conclusion that the spike in traffic in the months after the posting benefited Gawker by at least $5 million, and more likely, about $15 million. Hogan's witness says the "fair market value" for Gawker is $286 million. Hogan's legal team also presented a deposition by Kevin Blatt, who said he brokered sex tapes involving Kim Kardashian and Tila Tequila, to buttress the value of what Gawker had given its audiences. To each of these witnesses, Gawker attempted to pour cold water on the methodology behind their conclusions. For example, on cross-examination, Shunn acknowledged that it was unclear whether some of the numbers he cited referred to page views or unique visitors while Anderson admitted that he wasn't aware of a single instance where his web traffic-based valuation method had ever been used to appraise a website's increased value to a single post. Story continues Hogan has asserted $100 million in damages, and in opening statements, his attorney told the jury they should hold Gawker accountable by paying back the benefit it received and giving Hogan a fee for each Gawker.com visitor who viewed the sex tape. Hogan also wants damages for emotional distress. Before breaking for the weekend, Gawker made a motion for a directed verdict, saying that Hogan hadn't proved an invasion of privacy, a misappropriation of publicity rights, an infliction of emotional distress nor wiretapping. Florida Circuit Judge Pamela Campbell denied Gawker's attempt to end the case. She also rejected Gawker's bid to free Gawker owner Nick Denton from personal liability in this matter. Next week, Gawker presents its defense. So far, the jury has not gotten a chance to see more than a brief glimpse of the sex tape. By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) - Women with hypertension and physically demanding jobs are much more likely to suffer myocardial infarction than peers who are less active at work and have normal blood pressure, a recent study suggests. Among thousands of nurses, hypertension and lots of lifting, carrying, standing and walking were linked to almost triple the odds of MI, compared with more sedentary labor, the Danish analysis found. Physically demanding work may be associated with an elevated heart rate and blood pressure, said lead study author Karen Allesoe of the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. Over time, a high heart rate many hours a day may cause plaques to form in the arteries, Allesoe said by email. Hypertension has also been tied to such plaques, she added. Her team thinks these links might help explain why some women ended up at higher risk for MI. To explore the interplay between physical labor, high blood pressure and heart attack risk, Allesoe and colleagues reviewed data on more than 12,000 female nurses who participated in the Danish Nurse Cohort Study starting in 1993. Data were collected using a questionnaire, with participants rating their exertion levels as low, moderate or high. During 15 years of follow up, 580 nurses developed ischemic heart disease. Roughly 12% of the nurses reported having hypertension. About 47% of nurses reported high activity levels at work, 34% described their exertion level as moderate and 19% said they were generally sedentary. Nurses with normal blood pressure and high physical activity had a small increased risk of heart disease, but this wasnt statistically meaningful after adjusting for other risk factors like diabetes and smoking. These women had about five additional cases of heart disease per 10,000 people per year than would have happened if they didnt have physically demanding jobs, the researchers calculated. With hypertension, women had about 15 additional cases of heart disease per 10,000 people per year. Combining hypertension with hard labor, however, was associated with 60 extra cases of heart disease per 10,000 people per year, researchers reported February 14 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. One shortcoming of the study is its focus on only one profession in one country, the authors note. Because the analysis also relied on women to remember and report their activity and hypertension, its possible they provided incorrect information. Its also possible that whether women with hypertension took medication, and their lifestyles outside of working hours, could have influenced the results, said Lea Ann Matura, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in Philadelphia who wasnt involved in the study. Someone with uncontrolled hypertension may be at higher risk for ischemic heart disease due to physical activity, Matura added by email. We need to think about not only the work environment, but also the persons personal life, Matura said. If someone has uncontrolled hypertension and they are lifting heavy loads at home then they could be at risk, similar to the studys findings. SOURCE: bit.ly/1UWGodl Eur J Prev Cardiol 2016. By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has banned the manufacture and sale of more than 300 combination medicines, including two widely used cough syrups, being sold without government approval, a senior health ministry official said on Saturday. The move is aimed at curbing the misuse of such medicines in India, where nearly half the drugs sold in 2014 were so called "fixed dose combinations." Combination drugs are used worldwide to improve patients' compliance, as it is easier to get patients to take one drug rather than several. But inconsistent enforcement of drug laws in India has led to the proliferation of hundreds of such medicines entering the market based on approval from regulators of individual states, rather than the central government. In 2014, India set up a committee to review more than 6,000 combinations that had entered the market based only on state regulators' approval. Policymakers gave pharmaceutical companies a chance to retroactively prove the safety and efficacy of these drugs by submitting data on their drugs. The committee was tasked with classifying the drugs into rational, irrational, and those that need further studies, said KL Sharma, a joint secretary at the health ministry. "Now based on responses (and) assessment of products, more than 300 drugs have been prohibited," he told Reuters. He did not name the medicines, but said an official notice announcing the ban would be issued "in a few days." The Drug Controller General of India was not immediately available to comment. The banned medicines include the codeine-based cough syrups Phensedyl and Corex, the Times of India said in a report earlier on Saturday, citing unnamed sources. Phensedyl, made by U.S. drugmaker Abbott Laboratories, accounts for about a third of the Indian cough syrup market, and its sales are estimated to make up more than 3 percent of Abbott's $1 billion India revenue. Corex is sold by Pfizer Inc. Reuters reported last October that Indian regulators were privately pressuring drug firms to better police the selling of popular codeine-based cough syrups to tackle smuggling and addiction. Neither company responded to requests for comment on Saturday. Doctors and public health experts in India and abroad have warned that increasing use of antibiotic combinations in India may be contributing to antibiotic resistance. India is a particular concern as the market share of combination drugs versus single drugs is bigger than anywhere in the world. Reuters reported in December how a powerful antibiotic cocktail being marketed in India by a unit of Abbott and many other local companies did not carry approval from the central government. The combination was not approved for sale in major markets such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and Australia. Several medical experts said it did not make sense to prescribe the cocktail for cold symptoms. However, Abbott's former and current medical representatives said the combination was being promoted and administered as a treatment for a wide variety of illnesses, including colds and fevers. (Writing by Zeba Siddiqui; Editing by Clelia Oziel) Najaf (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr on Saturday urged his followers to ramp up pro-reform rallies by setting up tents in front of Baghdad's 'Green Zone' and camping out until their demands are met. The Shiite said in a statement that the sit-in demanding the reshuffle of a cabinet perceived as corrupt and ineffective would begin next Friday, on March 18. "I make a historical call to every honest, reform-loving Iraqi to rise up and start a new phase in the peaceful popular protests," the statement said. Sadr urged protesters to stay there for the 10 remaining days of an ultimatum he gave the government last month. "Get ready and organise yourselves to establish sit-in tents. This is your time to root out corruption and the corrupt," he said. A month ago, Sadr gave Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi a 45-day deadline to present the names of technocrats for a new government. Abadi has been pushing for a government of technocrats in a bid to revive reform pledges that he made last year but have remained largely a dead letter. Despite some of the ministers seen as the most corrupt being from his own political movement, Sadr has, with some success, attempted to make the new reform drive his own. Sadrists have held a series of massive rallies in central Baghdad, with thousands turning out on Friday for the latest protest to press their demands. The presence a week earlier of armed Sadr supporters outside the Green Zone -- where Abadi's office, parliament and the US embassy are located -- sparked intense security concerns. In the protest that he attended in Baghdad two weeks ago, Sadr threatened that his supporters could storm the Green Zone if their demands were not met. The Sadr rallies saw thousands of the Najaf-based cleric's supporters and members of his Peace Brigades militia bused in from the south of Iraq. They stifled what was left of a secular protest movement that also demonstrated against corruption but was launched last year over the lack of basic services such as water and electricity. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Islamic State is using several forms of contraception to maintain its supply of sex slaves, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing interviews with more than three dozen Yazidi women who escaped from the militant group. The New York Times reported that Islamic State used "oral and injectable contraception, and sometimes both" to ensure that the women did not become pregnant and could be passed among the fighters. "In at least one case, a woman was forced to have an abortion in order to make her available for sex, and others were pressured to do so," the paper said. Islamic State militants consider the Yazidis to be devil-worshippers. The Yazidi faith has elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam. Most of the Yazidi population, numbering around half a million, remains displaced in camps inside the autonomous entity in Iraq's north known as Kurdistan. Until late last year, some 5,000 Yazidi men and women were captured by the militants in the summer of 2014. Of those, around 2,000 had managed to escape or been smuggled out of Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliphate, activists said. The New York Times, citing a gynecologist who carried out the examinations, said that out of the more than 700 Yazidi rape victims who had gone to a United Nations-backed clinic in Iraq, only 5 percent had become pregnant during their enslavement. Dr. Nezar Ismet Taib, head of the Ministry of Health Directorate in Dohuk which oversees the clinic, said that number was much lower than expected, according to the newspaper. The United Nations and human rights groups have accused the Islamic State of the systematic abduction and rape of thousands of women and girls as young as 12. Many have been given to fighters as a reward or sold as sex slaves. Far from trying to conceal the practice, Islamic State has boasted about it and established a department of "war spoils" to manage slavery. Reuters reported on the existence of the department in December. (This version of the story corrects in last line to "December" from "Monday") (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Diane Craft) By Ori Lewis JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday called for world powers to take "immediate punitive steps" against Iran, following its ballistic missile tests last week. A series of tests conducted by Iran's Revolutionary Guards caused international concern, with the United States, France and other countries saying that, if confirmed, the launch of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles would violate U.N. Security Council resolution 2231. Netanyahu has been vehemently opposed to the international deal with Iran which led to the lifting of economic sanctions in January, and his position has put him at odds with U.S. President Barack Obama. A statement from Netanyahu's office said he had instructed the Foreign Ministry to appeal to the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, the powers who negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran, to act. "(The powers) must take immediate punitive steps following the repeated gross transgressions by Iran in the matter of the rockets," the statement said, adding that it would be "a test for the powers' ability to enforce the nuclear agreement." The United States said it would raise the issue during closed door U.N. Security Council consultations next week and is urging countries to cooperate on undermining Tehran's missile program, Samantha Power, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, said on Friday. The United States has said Iran's missile tests do not violate the terms of a historic nuclear deal between Tehran and six major powers, which resolution 2231 - adopted in July 2015 - endorsed. The U.N. missile restrictions and an arms embargo on Iran are not technically part of the nuclear agreement. Council diplomats say they will first await confirmation from national intelligence agencies on whether the missiles Iran fired were nuclear-capable. They also say that Russia and China, which had opposed continuing U.N. restrictions on Iran's missile program, would probably block council action. Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the tests were not in violation of the nuclear agreement. A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander was quoted last week as saying that Iran's medium-range ballistic missiles were designed to be able to hit Israel. "The reason we designed our missiles with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) is to be able to hit our enemy the Zionist regime from a safe distance," Brigadier-General Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by Iran's ISNA news agency. (Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Andrew Bolton) Jerusalem (AFP) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israeli diplomats to demand that world powers punish Iran for its recent ballistic missile launches, his office said on Saturday. Netanyahu "instructed the foreign ministry to contact the P5+1 countries and demand that immediate punitive measures be taken in the wake of Iran's repeated and gross violations on the missiles issue", it said in an English-language statement. "This is an important step in and of itself and is also a test of the major powers in enforcing the nuclear agreement," it added. An agreement between Iran and the permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) lifts international sanctions in return for Tehran ensuring that its nuclear programme remains purely for civilian use. Israel strongly opposed the deal with its arch-foe, with Netanyahu warning that it would not block Iran's path to nuclear weapons. Iran says it fired two long-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday and similar tests were carried out on Tuesday, less than two months after the Iran nuclear deal was implemented. On Thursday, an Israeli foreign ministry statement condemned the launches. "The development of ground-to-ground missiles with nuclear warhead capability calls into question Iran's intentions to comply in full with the nuclear agreement," it said. Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said on Friday that she had asked the Security Council to discuss the matter on Monday. The United States is "deeply concerned" about the missile tests "which are provocative and destabilizing", she said in a statement. Under the deal with Iran that came into force on January 16, most sanctions resolutions against Tehran were annulled. But an arms embargo and restrictions on ballistic missile technology capable of carrying a nuclear warhead remain in place, under Resolution 2231. Iran has maintained that its missile programme is not aimed at developing a nuclear capability. NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie confirmed on Friday that NJ Transit had reached a tentative contract agreement with a coalition of rail unions, but he declined to disclose the terms until labor leaders could discuss the details with the rank and file. Christie, who was criticized for his long absences from the state during his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination, said he had worked directly with all parties in the negotiations to expedite the settlement. "I never felt we were in danger of a strike or a lockout," he told a news conference. "Neither side was spoiling for a fight." The deal averts a strike that would have created havoc for commuters traveling from suburban New Jersey to New York City during the Monday morning rush. (Reporting by Frank McGurty; Editing by Sandra Maler) Keith Emerson, one of the most legendary keyboardists in rock history thanks to his work in Emerson, Lake & Palmer and The Nice, died at age 71 on March 10, according Emerson, Lake & Palmer's official Facebook page. "We regret to announce that Keith Emerson died last night at his home in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, aged 71," the post reads. "We ask that the familys privacy and grief be respected." Santa Monica Police later confirmed to Billboard that Emerson died of a gunshot wound to the head and his death is being investigated as a suicide. "I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my good friend and brother-in-music, Keith Emerson," Carl Palmer said on his website. "Keith was a gentle soul whose love for music and passion for his performance as a keyboard player will remain unmatched for many years to come. He was a pioneer and an innovator whose musical genius touched all of us in the worlds of rock, classical and jazz. I will always remember his warm smile, good sense of humor, compelling showmanship, and dedication to his musical craft. I am very lucky to have known him and to have made the music we did, together. Rest in peace, Keith." The British prog-rock supergroup formed in 1970 and released nine albums over the course of its career, the first five of which hit the top 10 of the Billboard 200. The band's 1970 self-titled debut is a prog-rock classic; the follow-up, 1971's Tarkus, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200. 1973's Brain Salad Surgery is regarded by many fans as their finest work. Emerson, Lake & Palmer broke up in 1979, with Emerson and Lake continuing on with a new drummer as Emerson, Lake & Powell. The original trio reunited in the early '90s to release two more albums. Read More: Lana Rae, Wife of Ex-Eagles Member Randy Meisner, Dies in Accidental Shooting Prior to his success with the immensely popular and influential outift, Emerson played with British band The Nice, melding rock music with classical and jazz influences. Emerson was classically trained as a child, and one of the most technically proficient keyboard players of his generation. He started experimenting with the Moog synthesizer after hearing the landmark 1968 LP Switched-On Bach. Emerson's showmanship while performing on the Moog, Hammond organ or piano was one of the trio's defining elements. Story continues See More: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2016 This story first appeared on billboard.com March 11, 2:49 p.m. This story has been updated to include that Emerson's death is being investigated as a suicide. Indian Wells (United States) (AFP) - Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber crashed out of the Indian Wells hardcourt tennis tournament Saturday, losing her opening match in straight sets 7-5, 7-5 to Czech Denisa Allertova. The world number two knocked off Serena Williams in the Australian Open final in January for the first Grand Slam tournament victory of her career. But Kerber's biggest problem on the WTA Tour has been inconsistency. She played superbly in Australia but then lost her first match at Doha. This is the third straight year she has lost her opening match at Indian Wells. "I achieved my goal of winning a Grand Slam. Nobody can take that away from me," she said. "If you lose in the first round you always have the next week to make it better." The 28-year-old German said there are more demands on her time since her victory in Australia. "The pressure is much different than it was a few months ago," she said. "I will try to learn from this experience. It was a busy week for me. It is a new situation I have to try to get used to." Kerber said the trophy she won at the Australian Open recently arrived at her home and now sits in the middle of her living room. "It was a great feeling and it is the highlight of my career right now," she said. Kerber had no aces and four double faults Saturday. She had her serve broken four times in the 98 minute main stadium match. "I had my chances in the second set and I didn't take them," she said. Allertova, 23, advanced to the third round of the joint WTA and ATP event, where she will face Great Britain's Johanna Konta. This was the first career meeting between Kerber and Allertova and the first time the Czech has played in the main draw at Indian Wells. "I tried to focus on every shot, play into the court and just play my best," said Allertova, who beat world No. 2 Simona Halep last year in Guangzhou, China. In other early women's matches, seventh seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland beat American Laura Davis 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. On the men's side of the draw, Canadian 12th seed Milos Raonic routed Inigo Cervantes-Huegun 6-1, 6-3, eighth seeded Richard Gasquet beat Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 6-1 in an all-French matchup and Gael Monfils defeated Pablo Carreno Busta 7-5, 7-6 (7/1). HAFR AL-BATIN, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday Washington believes that U.N.-sponsored peace talks should go ahead on Monday despite "perceived" truce violations by Syrian government forces, according to a U.S. pool reporter accompanying Kerry. Speaking after breakfast with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, Kerry said Russian and American monitors were to meet in Amman and Geneva on Saturday to try to further reduce violence in Syria, and that he planned to request a call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Asked if the talks can go ahead as planned despite ceasefire violations, Kerry said: "Yes, it can." "Our teams are meeting today with Russia in both Geneva and Amman, where very detailed lay downs will take place regarding these allegations, and I am requesting a call with Foreign Minister Lavrov today and we will work through these and we have been each day," he added. Syria's main opposition group said it would attend the peace talks in Geneva on Monday but accused the government of President Bashar al-Assad of preparing to escalate the war to strengthen its negotiating position. Kerry, who flew to Saudi Arabia on Friday for talks with King Salman and other senior officials, said the level of violence "by all accounts has been reduced by 80 to 90 percent, which is very, very significant. And what we want to do is continue to work to reduce these." "But we've made it very very clear that the Assad regime cannot use this process as a way to exploit the situation, when others are trying in good faith to abide by it. And there is a limit to the patience with respect to that," he added. Kerry also said that a U.S. meeting with the foreign ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) would take place at some point in next few weeks in the region, but gave no date or precise venue. The U.S. pool reporter said that both Kerry and Jubeir said that all present had agreed to push hard on the Syria talks, for a return to U.N.-sponsored peace talks to try to end the war in Yemen, and to develop plans to help Libya overcome its crisis. (Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Catherine Evans) Brasilia (AFP) - Brazil's largest political party said Saturday it will take 30 days to decide whether to break with President Dilma Rousseff as she faces an impeachment battle. Calls within the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party to ditch the leftist leader's coalition have been growing as Rousseff faces a bruising recession, a spiraling corruption scandal and a probe of alleged electoral violations, as well as possible impeachment. The huge centrist party, known as the PMDB, is seen as a kingmaker in Brazil, and losing its backing would be a devastating blow for the country's first woman president. PMDB lawmaker Osmar Terra, one of the leaders of the movement to break with Rousseff and her Workers' Party (PT), said the president has "lost control" of Latin America's largest country, which is stuck in what may be a record recession even as it prepares to host the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August. "The government has made bad decisions. It is sinking. The PMDB cannot sink with it," Terra told AFP. "The PT and the government are over." The decision was taken at the PMDB's national convention in Brasilia, which came ahead of nationwide protests Sunday calling for Rousseff's impeachment. There was vocal hostility to Rousseff at the convention, with many members shouting "Down with Dilma!" in between speeches. Party leaders said that during the 30-day period, PMDB members will be barred from accepting positions in Rousseff's administration to prevent her from interfering in the final decision. Among the issues at stake in the internal debate is whether PMDB lawmakers will be free to decide how to vote if Congress opens impeachment proceedings against the president. The party also re-elected as its leader Vice President Michel Temer, the man who would take over as president if Rousseff is forced out. Temer sought to downplay the calls for a break, though he also played to the anti-Rousseff crowd. Story continues "We can't ignore the fact that the country is going through an extremely serious political and economic crisis. But this is not the time to divide Brazilians," he said. Congress is mulling impeachment over allegations Rousseff fudged the government's accounts to boost public spending during her 2014 re-election campaign and hide the magnitude of the recession racking the once-booming South American giant. The Supreme Court is due to rule Wednesday on whether impeachment proceedings can go forward. Meanwhile, the Supreme Electoral Court is considering a case that could result in judges invalidating Rousseff's re-election. - 'Brazil is boiling' - Rousseff's woes deepened this week as prosecutors charged her powerful mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, with money laundering and requested his arrest in a case linked to a massive corruption scandal at state oil company Petrobras. The opposition is counting on the shockwave created by the charges against the once wildly popular ex-president to draw huge crowds into the streets for anti-Rousseff protests Sunday. More than a million protesters are expected across hundreds of cities. So far, Rousseff has managed to fight off impeachment, but the opposition is fired up by the case against Lula, who is suspected of accepting a luxury apartment as a bribe from a company accused of taking part in the multibillion-dollar corruption scheme at Petrobras. Rousseff dug in Friday, telling her critics there wasn't "the slightest possibility" she would resign and vehemently defending Lula. But in a sign of her administration's precarious position, the top two figures in the PMDB, Temer and Senate speaker Renan Calheiros, held talks with the opposition this week to seek a way out of the political crisis. "As I see it, the PMDB knows Brazil is boiling and that it will have to answer to history," said opposition leader Aecio Neves. "Major sectors of the PMDB now understand that despite the personal solidarity they may have with the president, there's no solution with her in the picture." Calheiros, the Senate speaker, declined to give details on the talks, saying only that the PMDB is "the pillar of governability." "The PMDB must hold its convention with great responsibility because any signal on its position can lessen or increase the crisis," he said. Geneva (AFP) - UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said Saturday that Syria's Kurds have a right to express their views on the country's political future, even if they are not invited to next week's peace talks in Geneva. "The Syrian Kurds are an important component of the country, so we need to find a formula in which they are able to express an opinion on the constitution and governance of the country," the UN's Syria envoy told Swiss newspaper Le Temps. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had on Friday urged de Mistura to include the Kurds in the discussions. Lavrov said holding the high-stakes talks without the Kurds would be "a most serious infringement of the rights of a large and significant group living in Syria". The issue of Syria's Kurds has caused a rare rift between the US and Turkey -- key players in the peace efforts -- as Ankara views the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkey has in recent months waged an all-out assault on the PKK, which began an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, fighting for greater autonomy. But Washington regards the armed wing of the PYD as the most effective force fighting in Syria against Islamic State jihadists, and has resisted Turkish pressure to classify the group as a terror organisation. A new round of talks aimed at ending Syria's brutal five-year war will begin in Geneva on Monday and will last no longer than 10 days, de Mistura has said. - Eyeing an 'inclusive' format - The Syrian Kurds were excluded from the first round and will not be involved in the upcoming talks, although de Mistura told the paper he had "a mandate to find to find formulas... that are as inclusive as possible." He said Monday's talks must kick off an 18-month countdown to presidential and parliamentary elections in Syria, adding: "If not, the danger is that the deadline constantly gets pushed back." Story continues Within six months, de Mistura said, Syria must have "new governance and a new constitution". "You can write a constitution in 48 hours. But it is not possible to put a transitional government in place quickly," he said. De Mistura dismissed an announcement by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of legislative elections on April 13 as having no value. "For me, the only elections that count are those decided by the Security Council," he told Le Temps. London (AFP) - The UN commissioner who investigated human rights in North Korea on Friday recommended establishing a panel of experts to study how crimes against humanity in the reclusive state can be punished. "What do you do if we bring home powerful evidence of crimes against humanity -- and a veto" from one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council "prevents you taking it further? How can you deal with that problem?" said Michael Kirby at a conference in London on human rights in North Korea. Creating a panel of experts "would be a good step because it would keep the focus on the follow up and actions on the COI (Commission of Inquiry) report" he produced, said the Australian judge. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in December that it was essential to take cases to the International Criminal Court. However, China, traditionally Pyongyang's closest ally, could always wield its UN Security Council veto. In London, Kirby said it was vital for the international community to keep Beijing engaged because China "likes to keep talking, and there lies the hope on the issues of Korea". The report by the COI, headed by Kirby and delivered in February 2014, concluded that human rights violations in North Korea were unparallelled in the modern world. If there remains much to do, there have nonetheless been "a number of positive developments", said Kirby, citing notably "the establishment of a UN field office in Seoul to continue gathering the statements of refugees" fleeing the Pyongyang regime. - 'Speak with one voice' - Kim Deuk-Hwan, the deputy head of mission of the South Korean embassy in London, said: "We cannot remain silent as human rights abuses continue." He called for the full implementation of the March 2 UN resolution imposing a new round of sanctions on North Korea after the secretive communist regime's latest nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Story continues "The only way to change the behaviour of the intransigent regime is for the international community to speak with one voice and to act in a united fashion," he said. "Otherwise, North Korea will never give up its nuclear and ballistic programmes. Instead they will continue to ignore the human rights of people undeterred." The conference, hosted by the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, heard from exile Kim Hyeong-soo, who fled his homeland in 2009. The 52-year-old biophysicist worked at the Mansumugang Institute, an organisation dedicated to preserving the longevity of the Kim dynasty and the ruling elite. He said the institute was ultra-secure, permanently guarded by armed men, protected by electric fences -- and working on some surprising areas of research. Kim Jong-Il, who ruled the country from 1994 until his death in 2011, "liked to drink and smoke", the exile said. He particularly liked the British brand Rothmans, "but he couldn't obtain it, so the tobacco team, they brought the tobacco plants from Africa and then developed it so that it tasted like Rothmans", he said. An annual anti-nuclear rally in Taiwan on Saturday saw a much lower turnout than previous years as president-elect Tsai Ing-wen vows to abolish the use of atomic energy on the island by 2025. Hundreds of people gathered outside Taipei's Presidential Palace in the rain, many wearing yellow ribbons and stickers bearing the slogans "Say goodbye to nuclear" and "Nuclear go zero". However, the crowd was noticeably smaller than the the thousands who joined last year's protest. Organisers chalked up the demonstration's small showing to the Democratic Progressive Party's victory at the polls in January. The DPP has promised, along with a slew of new political parties set to enter parliament, to phase out the use of nuclear energy. "Whether it's the DPP or the New Power Party, those that agree with creating a nuclear-free home have become the majority [in parliament]," Shu-Hsin Tsui, secretary general of Green Citizens' Action Alliance, told AFP. Tsai, who will take office in May, on Saturday reiterated her party's plan to make Taiwan nuclear-free within a decade. "To accomplish this goal, in addition to promoting energy efficiency we need to more importantly adjust the energy mix," the president-elect said in a Facebook post. The DPP says it will put forward a raft of new energy policies once it takes office, including plans to increase the use of clean energy on the island. Taiwan currently generates about one-fifth of its energy from three nuclear plants. In 2014, authorities were forced to seal off a nearly-completed fourth nuclear plant after public opposition. The DPP has said it has no plans to restart the project. The rally comes a day after Japan marked the fifth anniversary of a major nuclear disaster when the Fukushima energy plant was hit by a tsunami following an earthquake, knocking out power to its cooling systems and sending reactors into meltdown. Taiwan, like Japan, is prone to frequent quakes as the island lies on a number of fault lines. Story continues Protesters on Saturday also called on the government to propose new measures to safely store nuclear waste. "There hasn't been a comprehensive plan to deal with nuclear waste. We need to face this for our children," said Elvin Wu, 35, who attended the rally with her five-year-old daughter. "If the waste can't be effectively processed, then we hope that the nuclear plants will be shut." By Ian Graham BELFAST (Reuters) - A 45-year-old man was charged on Saturday with attempting to murder a Northern Irish prison officer who was seriously injured in a car bomb a week ago, which was claimed by militant nationalists police fear are set to step up attacks. Police have said there is a "severe" threat to security forces as the centenary approaches later this month of the 1916 anti-British Easter Rising, the most dramatic chapter of Ireland's independence struggle. Amid a heavy police presence at Belfast Magistrates' Court, Christopher Robinson from Belfast appeared to face the charges that also included possession of an improvised device with intent to endanger life. He did not reply when asked if he understood the charges, and was remanded in custody for four weeks. Several dozen supporters - ringed by a heavy force of armed police - stood in the public gallery during the brief hearing and applauded loudly when Robinson was led away. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by a militant group opposed to the 1998 peace deal that largely ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland between Protestants, who want to remain under British rule, and Catholics favoring unification with Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has stepped up security across the province. On Friday, a senior officer said further attacks had been foiled since the prison officer was injured. (Editing by Padraic Halpin and Andrew Bolton) A Hilton Head, South Carolina, charter boat captain caught a 2,500-pound great white shark this week. The captain, Chip Michalove, tagged the shark with an acoustic tracking device and took a DNA sample before letting her go, according to a post on Facebook. "We weren't exactly sure how big she was, initially, but after a 2 minute blistering run, she jumped completely out of the water, I wish I had a shot of that," Michalove wrote on Facebook. "Oh man, it was unbelievable," Troy Bowman, a math teacher who had chartered the boat for a fishing expedition, told the the Post and Courier. "It was like you'd seen an elephant out there. So big." Massive Great White Shark Caught off of South Carolina Coast| Real People Stories The shark was hooked in just 30 feet of water in cellphone range of Hilton Head beach, according to the newspaper. The men fought for over four hours to reel the shark closer to the boat, finally bringing her in at 7 p.m. By that time, Michalove had only the light from an iPhone to guide him as he removed the hook from the shark. "She was still pretty squirrelly. She still meant business, even at that time," Michalove said. Michalove has gained local fame in the last year for his success with great whites, having hooked five sharks this winter and bringing in three always for scientific purposes, according to The State. "The more we study, the more we learn," he said on Facebook. "Nothing illegal was done, and the shark is now going to give us lots of dataaso no hate mail." By Paul Carrel BERLIN (Reuters) - Germans vote in three regional state elections on Sunday, with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives at risk of setbacks that would weaken her just as she tries to push through a deal to resolve Europe's migrant crisis. Migration is the hot topic, as worry how Germany will cope with an influx, totaling more than a million last year alone, that has come to define Merkel's leadership, and on which she has staked her reputation. Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) have been losing support to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has profited from the growing unease. Asked at a campaign rally on Saturday how she was preparing for Sunday's results, Merkel said: "I'm crossing my fingers." Polls indicate that the CDU will remain the biggest party in Saxony-Anhalt, in former East Germany. In the west, it could be pipped by the Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where it is currently the largest party. And in Rhineland-Palatinate, where the CDU came a close second last time, the race is too close to call. A failure to win at least two of the three states would be a blow for Merkel just as she is trying to use her status as Europe's most powerful leader to push through an EU deal with Turkey to stem the tide of migrants. The chancellor alarmed many European leaders at a summit earlier this week by gambling on the last-minute draft deal with Turkey to stop the migrant flow, and demanding their support. Merkel still needs to seal the deal at another summit on March 17-18. If her party performs poorly on Sunday, she will go into that meeting weakened. One of those draining support from Merkel's CDU is the AfD. Already represented in five of Germany's 16 regional parliaments, the anti-immigration party looks set to burst into three more on Sunday, campaigning on slogans such as "Secure the borders" and "Stop the asylum chaos". Polls put the AfD's support as high as 19 percent in Saxony-Anhalt, where the CDU and Social Democrats now govern in a 'grand coalition' that mirrors Merkel's federal government. If the AfD performs as well as the polls indicate, the coalition partners may need to team up with a third party to assemble a majority - one of a number of potential 'firsts' for German politics as voter loyalties splinter. (Editing by Kevin Liffey) London (AFP) - Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has insisted that his methods are working despite his side's one-sided Europa League loss to arch rivals Liverpool and struggles in the Premier League. United's 2-0 defeat at Liverpool on Thursday left them facing elimination from the Europa League and with Van Gaal's side three points below the top four in the Premier League, having played a game more than fourth-place Manchester City, their hopes of Champions League qualification are fading. United continue to search for an identity under Van Gaal and were well beaten by Jurgen Klopp's effervescent Liverpool, but the Dutchman cited injuries, suspensions and the strain of competing on three fronts as mitigating factors. "I think it is working, because you have to see how we have to work and under which circumstances," said Van Gaal, whose side host West Ham United in the FA Cup quarter-finals on Sunday. "When you don't have too many players and you have to play in three competitions, it is very difficult to play. "The (playing) style is also working. It is not giving the best results. It is not good enough when you think that you have to be champion or win the Europa League or the FA Cup. "It is still possible, but when you see this game, you can say that (it is not working). But when you analyse what we have done this season and last season, you cannot say that." Asked by a reporter during his Anfield post-match media conference why United have not managed to win more than four games in a row this season, Van Gaal said it was due to the need to manage the resources in his squad. - 'Much more pressure' - "Because I have to change always my team," he said. "I cannot play the same line-up in many matches. "It is also because of the full schedule. Every manager in the Premier League is rotating and it is necessary, but I have to rotate because of injuries or tired players. That's difficult, that is not so easy. Story continues "That is also cheap for me to say that. And I don't want to hide (behind) the injuries or something like that. We are still in three competitions. So we can fight for a lot. "And it is possible that we are going out. And then it is again a very difficult situation for everybody. But still we have the chance to win something and you have to believe in that. "I see a lot of your colleagues are not believing in that. But that was already for a long time. There are many colleagues of mine not in three competitions anymore." With West Ham's visit on Sunday followed by the last 16 return leg against Liverpool on Thursday, United's chances of salvaging any silverware from their season could be over by the end of next week. But Van Gaal was unwilling to countenance the suggestion that the outcome of those two matches could have a decisive impact on his Old Trafford future. "I don't want to discuss that with you because you are not part of the people who determine (what happens)," he said. "It of course gives much more pressure. We are in three competitions and after the defeat in Midtjylland (in the Europa League), you have sacked me already and then we're standing up and we are in the next round. "And that is possible also against Liverpool. We have to play that match for the second time, at home, and maybe we can score three goals. "It shall be very difficult, I know that, but it is not impossible. Against West Ham United it is also possible. In Old Trafford we have normally won our games." Ratings agency Moody's downgraded its outlook for Hong Kong on Saturday, citing increasing political riskiness and closer economic ties with China, which is facing a growth slowdown. Moody's changed Hong Kong's outlook from "stable" to "negative" as the semi-autonomous city continues to reel from political unease following mass pro-democracy protests in 2014. The city saw violent street clashes between police and protesters last month and the fate of five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing and later turned up on the mainland, with four now under criminal investigation, is still in question. The case has triggered fears of increasing Chinese interference in the city. "Increasing political linkages are likely to weigh on Hong Kong's institutional strength," Moody's Investors Service said in a statement. "Political risk has risen in Hong Kong in light of ongoing tensions over the implementation of the 'One Country, Two systems' policy," it said, referring to the policy that grants the city freedoms not seen on the mainland. It warned that tensions could rise in the lead-up to an election next year for the city's leader, which it said could "impair the effectiveness of government policies". The vote is the first following a failed political reform package last year that saw pro-democracy lawmakers vote down a proposal that would have opened the ballot for the city's leader to all seven million residents instead of only allowing Beijing-vetted candidates to run. A Hong Kong government spokesman said Moody's comments were "purely speculative and subjective statements without any ground". "There has been no evidence of mainland interference in Hong Kong affairs or Hong Kong institutions losing independence over time," he said in a statement. Moody's report also said risk in China's economy and financial stability could also undermine the city's economic outlook. Story continues "The elevated volatility in Hong Kong's financial markets in recent months has mirrored developments in China's markets, highlighting the strong transmission of changes in risk aversion from China to Hong Kong." The world's second-largest economy expanded 6.9 percent in 2015, the worst performance in a quarter of a century and a far cry from the golden years of double-digit increases. Moody's also downgraded China's outlook from "stable" to "negative" earlier this month. But Hong Kong's financial secretary John Tsang said close links to Beijing were a boon, not a burden. "What they consider as risks from China, we see as opportunities from China," Tsang told reporters. National Geographic Channel is standing by their man. A network spokesperson on Friday issued a lengthy statement defending their longtime star after allegations of animal cruelty arose against "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan. An investigation was opened Thursday by the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control after a clip from Millan's Nat Geo series showed a pig being attacked and injured by a dog at his training center, deputy director Aaron Reyes confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. In the statement, the network praised Millan for being "dedicated" to helping animals and said that viewers were not able to see the full context of the encounter that occurred between the pig and dog in question. Nat Geo also said Millan will "fully cooperate" with the pending investigation and is "confident" that the allegations against him will be dropped. In addition to the statement, the network also released an extended clip, shown above, showing the interaction between the pig and dog. As of midday Friday, a new episode of Cesar 911 is still slated to air Friday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Nat Geo Wild. Their full statement is below: "Cesar Millan has dedicated his life to helping dogs and to showing how even the most difficult 'problem dog' can be rescued and rehabilitated. In a recent episode of the Nat Geo Wild series Cesar 911, Cesar works with an aggressive French bulldog/terrier mix named Simon, who has a history of attacking other animals, including his owners pet pot-bellied pigs. A short clip from the episode was shared online and showed Simon chasing a pig and nipping its ear, causing the ear to bleed. The clip caused some concern for viewers who did not see or understand the full context of the encounter. We have included an additional clip from the same episode [click here to download] to provide missing context. Cesar has created a safe and controlled environment at his Dog Psychology Center (DPC) in California in which to rehabilitate some of the most extreme or red zone cases of dog aggression, such as Simons. It is important to clarify that Cesar took precautions, such as putting Simon on a long lead to assess his behavior, before making initial corrections and removing the leash. The pig that was nipped by Simon was tended to immediately afterward, healed quickly and showed no lasting signs of distress. As the additional clip reveals, Cesar and his animal pack effectively helped Simon to overcome his aggressive behavior toward other animals; as a result, Simon did not have to be separated from his owner or euthanized. Story continues Cesar Millan is and will continue to fully cooperate with authorities in &lrmany investigation. He is confident that the investigation will show there was no wrong doing. March 11, 1:15 p.m. Updated with confirmation from County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control. var el = document.getElementById('targetParams');if (el !== null && typeof(el) != 'undefined') {var srcParams = $('.advert iframe').attr('src');var addParams = srcParams.split(";");for (i=1;i<=addParams.length - 1;i++) {if (addParams[i] != '=null' && addParams[i] != 'dcopt=ist' && addParams[i] != '!c=iframe' && addParams[i] != 'pos=t' && addParams[i] != 'sz=728x90') {el.value += addParams[i]+";";}}}brightcove.createExperiences();>>>>>>> Dallas (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Saturday gave a mocking rebuke of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for his incendiary language on the campaign trail. At a Democratic party fundraising event in Dallas, Texas, Obama offered a blunt condemnation of the "divisiveness" fomented by Trump on the campaign trail, including his motto "Make America Great Again." "We are great right now," Obama retorted, in remarks that came one day after skirmishes broke out at a scuttled Trump rally in Chicago. "What the folks who are running for office should be focused on is how we can make it even better -- not insults and schoolyard taunts and manufacturing facts, not divisiveness along the lines of race and faith. Certainly not violence against other Americans," Obama said. A Trump campaign event was canceled in Chicago on Friday when throngs of protesters -- many of them blacks and Latinos angered by Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric -- massed outside and inside the venue, mingling and in some cases brawling with the candidate's supporters. Critics warned that Trump's inflammatory language set the tone for the violence, and urged him to tone down the campaign rhetoric. As Trump has edged further ahead of the once-crowded Republican field, Obama has sharpened his criticisms of him. In Dallas, he also took a swipe at the mogul's antics in showcasing his wine label at a recent press conference. "Has anybody bought that wine?" Obama joked, "I want to know what that wine tastes like. I mean, come on, you know that's like some $5 wine. They slap a label on it, they charge you $50, saying this is the greatest wine ever. Come on!" Obama's ever-more direct criticism of Trump reflects a belief that the bellicose businessman may be the main thing standing between Democrats and a third consecutive White House term. Obama is expected to campaign vociferously for the eventual Democratic nominee, wielding his status as one of the country's most popular politicians to fire up the party faithful and make the case to young, black and Latino voters. According to a recent Gallup poll, he has a 50 percent approval rating, as high as it has been in three years and above average for a president in the last year of a two-term administration. A Republican victory would throw much of Obama's legacy into doubt -- from landmark health care reforms to the detente with Cuba. NEW YORK (Reuters) - A tugboat crew member died and two others were missing on Saturday after the vessel collided with a barge and sank in the Hudson River under the Tappan Zee Bridge north of New York City, authorities said. The pre-dawn accident involved a 90-foot tug with three people on board that struck a construction barge moored under the bridge, said the U.S. Coast Guard, one of the agencies involved in the search for the two missing crew. Governor Andrew Cuomo said one tugboat crew member died in the incident. Cuomo said the state's Department of Environmental Conservation and a private contractor were working to contain as much as 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel leaking from the sunken tug. The fuel leak created a slick some 300 feet (91 meters) wide and 5 miles (8 km) long, he said. Barges are moored near the bridge as part of the construction of a new span connecting New York's Rockland and Westchester counties. Cuomo said there were 21 workers on the construction barge at the time of the collision, but none were injured. The tugboat, named Specialist, was one in a party of three tugs transporting a barge with construction equipment down the Hudson River when it veered from the designated channel and crashed into the stationed construction barge. The other two boats were not involved in the crash. It was not the first fatal accident since the massive bridge project began. In July 2013, a speedboat carrying six members of a wedding party smashed into a barge anchored below the span, a major transportation link in the city's northern suburbs. Two people were killed, including the bride-to-be and the best man. (Reporting by Frank McGurty and Joey Ax in New York; Additional reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Chang and Diane Craft) When Cassandra Chung posted a petition for Nottingham University in the United Kingdom to remove its poster of Datuk Seri Najib Razak over his silence on the RM2.6 billion donation, she was counting on getting 100 signatures at most. But in three days, the law student received almost 4,000 signatures to back her motion to be submitted to the University of Nottingham Malaysian Society. Weve already submitted the motion and as of now, we will not be withdrawing it, Chung told The Malaysian Insider, when asked on the status of her motion. Right now, we are waiting on the Malaysian Society to approve the motion for debate at next weeks AGM (annual general meeting). But Chung said while the Malaysian Society was incredibly open to most of the members suggestions for most times, she was unsure whether it would accept the motion, given the pressure that it must be under to remain neutral. She added that she was only a regular member of the society, although she tried to run for welfare secretary once. Nevertheless, the undergraduate was ecstatic over the overwhelming response to the petition uploaded on March 8. When the petition was in the drafting stage, I was told a couple of times that the petition may not get a lot of support. So when it was started, the hope was for at least a 100 signatures. So imagine everybodys surprise (including Justin and I) when we reached 1,000 in less than 24 hours and when various press portals picked up on the petition, said Chung, referring to the motions seconder, Justin Ong. Courting backlash But the fame has not gone unnoticed. Chung said she faced online threats and apparently caught the attention of the authorities. About two or three hours after the petition came up, I was informed by a committee member of the Nottingham Malaysian Society that the High Commission (of Malaysia in Singapore) was looking for my number. I was shaking to the point I ended up getting only two hours of sleep that night. But she said the high commission had yet to contact her and friends assured her that they probably just wanted to give her an hour long lecture. Apparently, somebody told me the petition managed to stress (out) Education Malaysia, Kelab Umno and the high commission. Meanwhile, a Facebook user, who goes by the name Ab Jalil Backer, urged social media users to provide him information on Chungs family. Calling the petition an unacceptable insult to the country, Jalil said he wanted to see how pure Chungs family were. For a Malaysian student to come up with this petition to an overseas university and make accusations that she herself is unsure are true is treason towards the country, he said. One day, it is not impossible that when she returns, she will sabotage her own country if she does not agree with the leaders. Chung said her first reaction upon reading Jalils post was to laugh at how he had misunderstood her petition. The way he wrote everything was as if I was asking Najib to resign, when, if read carefully, all I want is for him to answer truthfully to the allegations, said Chung. But she said fear set in later not for herself, but for her family, who may now find their personal details laid bare on the Internet. Jalils post also attracted comments accusing Chung of being ungrateful and urging the government to strip her of her citizenship so she could rot overseas. Some comments focused on her ethnicity, even though Jalil urged them not to be racist. Bangsa ni memang ramai tak sedar diri..asal keturunan merempat kat tanah melayu skrang kadok nak junjung, said Mariati Radwan. (Many from this race are not self-aware. They originally came to Malaya as homeless people but now they think theyre so special.) Walaupun bumputra mempunyai hak istimewa di bumi Malaysia, tetapi orang2 kaya Malaysia dimonopoli orang Cina. Demokrasi macam mana lagi orang Cina mahu? asked Nizar Hashim. (Even though Bumiputeras have special rights, the nations wealth is monopolised by the Chinese. What kind of democracy do they want?) Chungs best friend came to her aid and listed Jalils Facebook friends to block. Chung said she would also like to thank former student activist, Fahmi Zainol, who publicly criticised Jalil for dragging her family into the issue. While I am still worried, I think small acts like that that kind of support shown doesnt make it so bad. Other people have been very supportive in their own ways and I think that has eased the fear substantially, knowing there will be people who will have my and my familys back. Injustice, not politics She also hoped people would not interpret her cause as Pakatan Harapan trying to bring down Najib. The focus here is on the Malaysian community as a whole (not just in Nottingham but also back home) who should be taking more initiative to speak out. I do hope this petition has inspired more to speak out on issues of injustice. In an update posted to the petition earlier today, Chung urged the signatories to get more people on board, saying that this would increase the chances that the society would pay attention to it. As for the supporters of this petition, if you do come across any threat, I do strongly urge all of you to respond with rationality and compassion rather than retaliate with sharp words. March 12, 2016. Warsaw (AFP) - Pope Francis will visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as part of his visit to Poland in July when he will chair World Youth Day, organisers announced Saturday. He will visit the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland on July 29, on the third day of his visit to the country, according to the head of the KAI Catholic news agency, Marcin Przeciszewski. Two of the pope's predecessors also visited the camp, John Paul II -- himself Polish -- in 1979 and Benedict XVI in 2006. Some 1.1 million people, including a million Jews from across Europe, were killed by Nazi Germany at the camp from 1940 to 1945. The other victims were mostly non-Jewish Poles, gypsies and Soviet prisoners. Pope Francis will spend a total of five days in Poland, arriving on July 27 and concluding his visit on July 31. He will visit the Czestichowa shrine in the country's south and attend a mass there to celebrate the 1050th anniversary of the introduction of Christianity to Poland. The pontiff will also meet senior Polish officials including President Andrzej Duda in his role as the Vatican's head of state. During a special ceremony on Capitol Hill to mark the 60th anniversary of the Korean War (1950-1953), American veteran and former Nevada governor, Mike O Callaghan (1929-2004), was saluted for his contribution to his country. The decorated Korean War hero was the recipient of the Silver Star for his efforts in helping to rescue several of his comrades under heavy enemy fire. He also received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for valor. Yet, he paid dearly losing his left leg below the knee after being hit by a mortar round. OCallaghan died of heart failure six years ago. At his funeral, more than 2,000 mourners bid him a tearful farewell. He was given a 21-gun salute and a fly by four F-16 jet fighters. All this pomp and honor might signal a perfect ending for any other man. Yet, according to a Chinese friend, Tan Liangxian, OCallaghan left this world with an unfulfilled wish to visit China, a country against which he once harbored a bitter hatred. Fire at Me! OCallaghans hatred originated from his battlefield experiences during the Korean War, according toNo War in Heaven, a memorial article published in the Family magazine last year, which described OCallaghans recollections as relayed to Tan Liangxian over eight years. During the Battle of Triangle Hill in 1952, OCallaghan led over 100 squad members as they fought to take control of the hill. Amid fierce fighting, OCallaghan and his troops charged to the summit. Once there, they encountered a lone, unarmed young and callow Chinese soldier leaning against a naked tree trunk, shouting loudly. Instinctively, OCallaghan ordered his men not to shoot. Cease fire! Hes just a child. The Chinese soldier was shouting too, but nobody understood what he was saying until someone found he was carrying a walkie-talkie. It was too late. A barrage of mortar fire soon reigned down on OCallaghans squad, killing everyone, apart from three survivors, including OCallaghan himself, who lost the lower part of his left leg during the incident. For years OCallaghan has agonised over his act of mercy. During conversation with Tan, he made it clear that he would never have given the order to spare the young boys life if he thought it would have resulted in the death of his companions. He told Tan he often woke up from a nightmare in which the event was replayed, while his leg served as a constant reminder of his dead friends and the unknown Chinese soldier. However, OCallaghan did not meet Tan Liangxian until 1995, a full 42 years after the end of Korean combat operations. Tan, from Hong Kong, was the then head of a commercial Chinese delegation to the United States. During their first encounter in Las Vegas, OCallaghan shared his memories of that unforgettable battle with Tan. Reminded of a scene in the 1960s Chinese Korean War movie,Heroic Sons and Daughters, Tan suddenly found himself in tears. Mr OCallaghan, let me tell you what he (the Chinese soldier) was shouting, he said. He was yelling, the enemy has surrounded me. Fire at me ... for victory, fire-at-me! Tans answer would have been familiar to many Chinese. In the movie, Heroic Sons and Daughters, leading man Wang Cheng, a radio operator similar to the one encountered by OCallaghan, requested artillery fire on his position and perished alongside his enemies. OCallaghan was shocked. He lifted his trouser leg and exposed his prosthesis, telling Tan he hated Wang Cheng, but also respected him. Same Memories Wang Chengs story helped to soften OCallaghans emotions. After watching a video tape of the movie, he told Tan he would no longer harbor hatred towards the Chinese soldiers who killed his comrades, as they had also safeguarded a soldiers dignity. A hero understands a hero, Tan wrote in his article. In his eyes, the American soldier OCallaghan and the Chinese Wang Chengs, though different in their stance, were cut from the same cloth: obeying orders, being brave and loyal to their countries. OCallaghan would never forget the combat in which he lost his left leg. He related to Tan how after regaining consciousness, he randomly seized a fistful of soil and surprisingly found about 30 shell casings in it. The Chinese soldier had been blown apart, leaving only a honeycomb-like tree trunk behind. The blast had blown off the other surviving soldiers legs and severed his right arm, while the third survivor was left blind and deaf. LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's divided parliament may refuse to approve Lisbon's contribution to new bailout loans for Greece and a European Union aid package to help Turkey deal with the migrant crisis, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said on Saturday. Costa told journalists the two far-left parties that back his minority Socialist government - the Left Bloc and the Communists - had long opposed the payments and could vote against them. The main opposition Social Democrats had also said they would reject the aid, Costa said, a stance he called an "irresponsible" change in their past support for the package. The EU agreed to a 3-billion-euro ($3.35 billion) aid package for Turkey in November, made up partly of money from the EU budget and partly of contributions from member states. If one country were unable to contribute, the package would not necessarily collapse, but there would be less money in it unless another EU state picked up the slack. The money for the Greek bailout comes from the European Stability Mechanism, which borrows it on the markets with small national contributions to the fund's capital. The Portuguese funding for both is part of this year's budget, which is still making its way through parliament due to delays following months of political uncertainty and last year's inconclusive election that ultimately led Costa to power. "They (the opposition) will say, ah, but the other parties could have a different stance. They could. But they are consistent with what they've always been saying and they'd have to change their position," Costa said in televised remarks answering questions from reporters. "But the Social Democrats who assumed these responsibilities for the Portuguese state, and who have always supported them, now refuse to approve them ... That is absolutely irresponsible," he said in Paris after a European Socialist summit. Portugal, Western Europe's poorest nation, was supposed to transfer 24 million euros to Turkey under the EU November deal. Portugal's scheduled contribution to the Greek loan package totals 107 million euros this year. ($1 = 0.8968 euros) (Reporting By Andrei Khalip; Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Brussels; Editing by Andrew Heavens) By Mohammed Ghobari and Mohammed Mukhashaf CAIRO/ADEN (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Yemen's president have broken a siege by the Iranian-allied Houthis around the strategic Yemeni city of Taiz, local fighters and residents said on Saturday, as the United States raised the possibility of a Syrian-style truce in Yemen. At least 48 people were killed in heavy clashes in Yemen's third biggest city, medics and local fighters said, and at least 120 were wounded. Witnesses said there were bodies scattered in the streets. Supporters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition, have been trying for months to lift the siege of the southwestern city and open up supply routes. The coalition has been trying for a year to roll back gains by the Houthi militia and restore Hadi, who is currently in Saudi Arabia. The war has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced millions. The reported capture of the western entrance to Taiz, nearly half of whose 250,000 residents had been trapped since May, was hailed by the pro-Hadi Sabanew news agency as a major breakthrough. It said Hadi had telephoned the local military commander to congratulate him. The rival Houthi-run news agency, Sabanews, acknowledged heavy fighting in Taiz but said fighters from the group had killed 27 fighters loyal to Hadi. Yemeni Vice President Khaled Bahah, who is also the prime minister, told a news conference in the southern port city of Aden that the Yemeni government was preparing an aid convoy to Taiz to leave soon, but gave no further details. Bahah also said the government had prepared 1,000 men to impose security in Taiz immediately to avoid a repetition of the lawlessness that had gripped Aden after pro-Hadi forces captured the city from the Houthis in July last year. The United Nations has accused the Houthis of obstructing the delivery of humanitarian supplies to civilians in Taiz, saying residents had been living under "virtual siege". The Houthis and troops loyal to their ally, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, remain entrenched in much of the northern half of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. Islamist militants have exploited the chaos to widen their influence. POSSIBILITY OF CEASEFIRE U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who met Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir at Hafr al-Batin in northern Saudi Arabia, said they discussed the possibility of a ceasefire in Yemen similar to the arrangement that has been implemented in Syria. "We both agree that it would be desirable to see if we can find a similar approach, as we did in Syria, to try to get a ceasefire," Kerry said, referring to the truce that has largely held for two weeks in Syria. Jubeir said Saudi Arabia believed a political settlement that would ensure the Houthis abided by common understandings reached before the Houthi capture of Sanaa would pave the way to a solution. "We reiterated to the secretary of state our commitment as expressed by the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) heads of state to embark on a long-term reconstruction and development plan for Yemen once the hostilities have ended," Jubeir said. A delegation from the Houthis is currently in Saudi Arabia for talks on facilitating humanitarian aid to Yemen. The visit, which Yemeni officials say may be a precursor to resuming U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Switzerland after two unfruitful rounds last year, came after Saudi Arabia and the Houthis exchanged prisoners last week. (Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Cairo and Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Andrew Bolton) Warsaw (AFP) - Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Warsaw on Saturday in the latest round of a constitutional row that has put the government on a collision course with the country's top court. Warsaw city hall estimated that around 50,000 anti-government protesters rallied outside the constitutional court which is in dispute with the government over reforms which critics say undermine judicial independence. The demonstration came as the government refused to publish a ruling by the constitutional court abolishing the new laws. A government spokesman on Saturday said the ruling could not be published because doing so would make it legally binding. "The Polish government cannot publish the verdict of certain constitutional court judges as it has no legal foundation," spokesman Rafal Bochenek told media. The contretemps came a day after Council of Europe legal experts said the government's reforms to the court would undermine democracy and the rule of law in the EU member state. The right-leaning Law and Justice (PiS) government introduced the reforms in December. The changes include upping from a simple majority of judges to a two-thirds majority the bar for rulings and requiring 13 judges, rather than nine, to be present for the most contentious cases. The Polish court itself struck down the reforms on Wednesday, creating a constitutional crisis and legal impasse after the government refused to recognise the ruling. The Venice Commission -- a body of legal experts within the Council of Europe -- said Friday that the government's refusal to publish the judgement "would further deepen the constitutional crisis in Poland" and render justice ineffective. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo says the court, having refused to apply reforms it deems unconstitutional, cannot rule on government changes to the judiciary and media even if Warsaw is constitutionally obliged to publish and apply court decisions. Story continues Bochenek said Szydlo would pass on to parliament the Venice Commission's opinion so all parties could debate the issue. Many demonstrators on Saturday carried aloft Polish and EU flags and banners bearing the text of the court verdict and the slogan "Poland is a state governed by law". Opposition leader Ryszard Petru, of the Nowoczesna.pl liberal party urged President Andrzej Duda to ensure the consitution is upheld "at this historic moment for Poland" and for Duda and Szydlo to ensure publication of the verdict. Monaco (AFP) - Paris Saint-Germain's path to claiming the Ligue 1 title in record time this weekend was cleared on Friday as nearest challengers Monaco were held 2-2 at home by Reims. A win at lowly Troyes on Sunday would give Laurent Blanc's side 77 points -- 25 more than Monaco who are currently second with 52 points after 30 games -- and a fourth successive crown to round out an excellent week after reaching the Champions League quarter-finals. Until now the fastest a team has won the French league title was after 33 games when Gerard Houllier led Lyon to the crown in 2007. Monaco are targetting the second direct Champions League spot with Leonardo Jardim's side having no room for error with Lyon, the only team to beat the Parisians this season, third, seven points behind the Principality side. Monaco had gotten off to a bright start with winter signing Vagner Love getting a first half double. The Brazilian opened after just five minutes at Stade Louis II only for Gaetan Charbonnier to get the equaliser six minutes later following a superb cross from Nicolas De Preville. Vagner got his second on 37 minutes following an error by Charbonnier only for fellow Brazilian Diego to pull Reims level after 79 minutes, for a precious point as they sit three points above the drop zone. Lyon, coming off last weekend's 5-1 win against Guingamp, travel to another Brittany side Rennes on Sunday, with the hosts also in impressive form having beaten Nantes 4-1 last Sunday. Yangon (AFP) - Myanmar's army sparked public criticism Saturday after it nominated a retired general still blacklisted by the United States to be vice president of the country's first civilian government in decades. Hardliner Myint Swe, 64, is seen as a close ally of former junta leader Than Shwe and comes from a military establishment that pummelled the Southeast Asian country into poverty under decades of isolationist rule. A parliament dominated by Aung Sang Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy is days away from confirming a president after sweeping to power in November elections, but the still-strong army has the right to nominate a candidate. Though the NLD's nominee Htin Kyaw is all but guaranteed to clinch the top post, the army's Myint Swe would still become one of two vice presidents. Social media sites and comment boards were flooded with criticism after his nomination was announced, with many expressing regret over the military's continuing political influence. "Even though we hoped to see a civilian government, we have to accept a thief anyway," wrote Facebook commentator Aung Kyaw Oo. Zaw Linn posted, "I can't understand why the military chose someone who the people so strongly do not want." The US State Department confirmed that Myint Swe, now Yangon chief minister, still faces sanctions but did not say whether this would affect diplomatic relations. "We have made our concerns known about this individual and this process, quite frankly, and well monitor it going forward," spokesperson John Kirby said in a Washington briefing Friday. The US began easing economic sanctions on Myanmar after a quasi-civilian government took over from the junta in 2011 and unleashed a wave of political reforms. But dozens of business tycoons and senior military figures, including Myint Swe, have been kept on the treasury department's list of "Specially Designated Nationals" and Americans are barred from doing business with them. Story continues Questions also remain about the retired general's eligibility for the role, as he was disqualified from the vice presidency in 2012 for having a son-in-law with Australian citizenship. The country's army-scripted charter bans anyone with close foreign relatives from the top office, which is why Suu Kyi herself is unable to officially take the helm despite her widespread popularity. The 70-year-old Nobel laureate -- whose sons have British citizenship -- has long said she would circumvent the ban by ruling "above" the president. Her choice for a proxy, respected writer and long-time friend Htin Kyaw, is highly likely to assume the role after sailing through a parliamentary vote this week. A military spokesman declined to comment on how the army's nominee would evade the foreign citizenship clause, which many suspect was written specifically to sideline Suu Kyi. "We can only confirm to you that he is who the military chose as vice president and we can't comment on the other issues," Colonel Khin Maung Cho told AFP. Berlin (AFP) - On the eve of regional elections set to show her Christian Democrats losing support, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that refugees had a "duty" to integrate themselves into German society. "We expect refugees to accept these offers (of integration). It is a duty and not just a possibility," said Merkel, who has been under increasing pressure after throwing open Germany's doors to newcomers, with 1.1 million refugees -- many of them Syrians -- seeking asylum in Europe's biggest economy last year alone. She was speaking in the southern town of Haigerloch on the final day of campaigning, with her comments reported by German news agency DPA. More than 12 million voters are due to elect three new regional parliaments for the southwestern states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as eastern Saxony-Anhalt in the so-called Super Sunday polls. It will be the government's first major test at the polls since last year's record influx and disgruntled voters are expected to seize on the opportunity to hit the ruling coalition where it hurts. In its traditional Baden-Wuerttemberg fiefdom, opinion polls show the Christian Democrats losing out to the Greens, with support for the party seen sliding by around 10 percentage points compared with the previous vote five years ago. In Rhineland-Palatinate, Merkel's party is almost neck-and-neck with the Social Democratic Party, although in Saxony-Anhalt, the CDU retains a big lead. In a bid to justify her open stance on migration despite considerable opposition at home and abroad, Merkel has campaigned relentlessly to ensure her party maintains support in the face of a populist advance on the right and left. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere meanwhile warned voters not to heed the siren call of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), saying its call to close the borders surge "harms our country". "The AfD has no political concept and no competence in terms of finding solutions" to Germany's problems, he told Die Welt daily. Merkel insisted in midweek the AfD's fortunes would ebb as the refugee crisis was gradually resolved. Exit polls in Sunday's elections are due around 1700 GMT. A large, shapeless, gray mass that recently washed ashore on a Mexican beach had officials and observers alike scratching their heads over what in the world the thing could be. People guessed it might be a giant squid, a type of whale or perhaps some sort of unknown, monstrous creature. But according to a marine mammals expert, the jumbled and untidy pile of grayish skin and flesh is likely part of a sperm whale's head. Representatives of the Proteccion Civil y Bomberos de Acapulco (Civil Protection and Firefighters Department in Acapulco) discovered the peculiar object on Bonfil Beach, and described it as measuring about 13 feet (4 meters) in length, according to a report by the Mexican news site 24 Hours. [Release the Kraken! Giant Squid Photos] Sabas de la Rosa Camacho, an official with the Acapulco department, told 24 Hours in a phone interview that the department received a notification about the strange object on the beach at 4 p.m. local time on March 9. He speculated that strong currents related to recent bad weather had brought it to shore. Video posted by department officials on Facebook show a uniformed man with a stick lifting the mass's folds and poking at it in several places. While the mystery object was assumed to be the remains of a decomposing marine animal, de la Rosa Camacho noted that it did not have a strong or unpleasant smell. And though the investigation revealed bones within the heap, officials could not identify what type of animal it was, he said. Heading off rumors Though it's tempting to assign a monstrous identity to this unfamiliar object, the most probable explanation is that it's the top half of the head mass for a sperm whale, said James Mead, curator emeritus of marine mammals at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. In sperm whales, the roomy top part of the head is divided into two main regions, Mead told Live Science in an email. The top area is occupied by the spermaceti organ, a holding container for a waxy liquid that helps the whale with echolocation. In the bottom area is what's known as "the junk," which is mostly connective tissue. Story continues Mead explained that the flesh pile on the beach is probably a sperm whale's junk and the top part of the head minus the spermaceti organ. "The junk has separated from the skull, and you can see about midway through the video the nasal plugs, which form the valve that closes the bony narial [nasal] tube," Mead said. He suggested that the length approximation for the mass, 13 feet (4 m), represented the junk stretched out. Its relaxed length would be about 10 feet (3 m), "which would mean that it had come from a sperm whale that was on the order of about 30 to 40 feet [9 to 12 meters] long," he told Live Science. Follow Mindy Weisberger on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. By William Philpott DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) - Secret Service agents rushed on stage to protect U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump during a disturbance at a rally on Saturday, a day after rowdy protests shut down his event in Chicago. Trump briefly ducked at the podium and four Secret Service agents scrambled to surround him after a man charged the stage at Dayton International Airport in Ohio. Agents then grabbed the man, dressed in a black tee shirt and jeans, and hauled him away. His motivation was not immediately clear, and Trump went on to finish his speech, but the incident further increased tension after Trump's Chicago rally was abandoned amid chaotic scenes on Friday. Disruptions at a rally on Saturday afternoon in Cleveland were quickly contained as Trump blamed them on Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Several hundred protesters were awaiting Trump's arrival at an evening event in Kansas City. Trump's Republican rivals have hurled scorn at the New York billionaire, saying he helped create the nervous atmosphere that is now sweeping the race for the White House with his fiery rhetoric. Trump blamed Sanders supporters for the incidents in Chicago, where scuffles broke out between protesters and backers of the real estate magnate. He called the U.S. senator from Vermont "our communist friend." The scenes in Chicago follow a series of recent incidents of violence at Trump rallies, in which protesters and journalists have been punched, tackled and hustled out of venues, raising concerns about degrading security leading into the Nov. 8 election. "All of a sudden a planned attack just came out of nowhere," Trump said in Dayton, describing the events in Chicago. He called the protest leaders there "professional people". Sanders hit back, describing Trump as "a candidate that has promoted hatred and division." "As is the case virtually every day, Donald Trump is showing the American people that he is a pathological liar. Obviously, while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trump's rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests." President Barack Obama told a fundraising event in Dallas, Texas, that political leaders "should be trying to bring us together and not turning us against one another." Former Secretary of State Clinton drew criticism for releasing an initial statement that did not mention Trump by name and tied violent campaign events to a shooting in a South Carolina black church last year that left 9 people dead. While campaigning in St. Louis, Missouri, on Saturday, Clinton criticized Trump directly for "ugly, divisive rhetoric" that encourages aggression and violence. CRUCIAL PRIMARIES The months-long Republican race may be coming to a head at nominating contests on Tuesday where Trump is seeking victories that might give him an almost insurmountable lead for the nomination. Primaries in Florida and Ohio will be particularly important since they are winner-take-all states, where all Republican delegates are given to the winner of the popular vote instead of being awarded proportionally. It will be a make-or-break day for Republican candidates John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who both must win their home states to forge a credible path forward. Rubio bemoaned the state of the presidential race during a Saturday event in Pinellas County on Florida's central Gulf Coast, saying it had "become reality television." "Last night in Chicago, we saw images that make America look like a Third World country," Rubio said, reminding supporters the stakes on Tuesday are high. "If Donald Trump is our nominee, it will fracture the Republican Party," Rubio added. Kasich told journalists before a campaign event in Cincinnati, Ohio, that Trump had created a "toxic environment." "And that toxic environment has allowed his supporters, and those who seek confrontation, to come together in violence," he said. In a statement, Republican candidate U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called the Chicago incidents "sad." Trump has drawn fervent support as well as criticism for his calls to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. His rallies often attract small groups of protesters, but Friday's was the first at which there may have been as many protesters as supporters. Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer said that the tension on display at Trump's events are a proxy for what is going on in the electorate writ large. "People have strong reactions to Donald Trump," Geer said. "They are playing out in the voting booth and they are also playing out at these events." Geer said the cancellation would likely embolden Trump's supporters - an idea floated by Trump in several television interviews. In minor nominating contests on Saturday, Clinton won the Northern Mariana Islands and Republican Cruz won Guam, according to television networks. (Additional reporting by Tim Reid in Cincinnati, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Kevin Murphy in Kansas, Catherine Koppel in Chicago, and Ian Simpson, Idrees Ali and Amanda Becker in Washington.; Editing by Alistair Bell and Sandra Maler) Korean service in the Japanese military Edit Korean military participation until 1943 [ 43 ] [ 44 ] Year Applicants Applicants accepted Acceptance rate [%] 1938 2,946 406 13.8 1939 12,348 613 5.0 1940 84,443 3,060 3.6 1941 144,743 3,208 2.2 1942 254,273 4,077 1.6 1943 303,294 6,300 [ 45 ] 2.1 Japan did not draft ethnic Koreans into its military until 1944 when the tide of WW II turned dire. Until 1944, enlistment in the Imperial Japanese Army by ethnic Koreans was voluntary, and highly competitive, as illustrated on the chart to the right. From a 14% acceptance rate in 1938, it dropped to a 2% acceptance rate in 1943 while the raw number of applicants increased from 3000 per annum to 300,000 in just five years during World War II. Of note, ethnic Korean during 35 years of colonial governance by Japan produced 7 Generals and countless field grade officers (Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels, and Majors) in the Japanese Army despite institutionalized discrimination. The first and the best known among them is Lieutenant General and Crown Prince Yi Un. The other six Generals were graduates of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy.[47] They are: Lieutenant General Jo Seonggeun;[48] Major General Wang Yushik;[49] Lieutenant General Viscount Yi Beyongmu;[50] Major General Yi Heedu;[51] Major General Kim Eungseon (also military aide and personal guard to Prince Yi Un);[52] Lieutenant General Hong Sa-ik, the Commander of all Prisoner Camps in southern Philippines in 1944-1945. Other Japanese Army officers of Korean origin moved onto successful careers in the post-occupation period. Well-known examples include Park Chung-hee, who became president of South Korea, Chung Il-kwon (???,), prime minister from 1964 to 1970, and Paik Sun-yup, South Korea's youngest general, famous for his defense during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter during the Korean War. The first ten of the Chiefs of Army Staff of South Korea graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and none from the Korean Liberation Army.[53][54] Officer cadets had been joining the Japanese Army since before the Annexation by attending the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Enlisted Soldier recruitment began as early as 1938, when the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria began accepting pro-Japanese Korean volunteers into the army of Manchukuo, and formed the Gando Special Force. Koreans in this unit specialized in counter-insurgency operations against communist guerillas in the region of Jiandao. The size of the unit grew considerably at an annual rate of 700 men, and included such notable Koreans as General Paik Sun-yup, who served in the Korean War. Historian Philip Jowett noted that during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Gando Special Force "earned a reputation for brutality and was reported to have laid waste to large areas which came under its rule."[55] Starting in 1944, Japan started the conscription of Koreans into the armed forces. All Korean males were drafted to either join the Imperial Japanese Army, as of April 1944, or work in the military industrial sector, as of September 1944. Before 1944, 18,000 Koreans passed the examination for induction into the army. Koreans provided workers to mines and construction sites around Japan. The number of conscripted Koreans reached its peak in 1944 in preparation for war.[56]From 1944, about 200,000 Korean males were inducted into the army. During World War II, American soldiers frequently encountered Korean soldiers within the ranks of the Imperial Japanese Army. Most notably was in the Battle of Tarawa, which was considered during that time to be one of the bloodiest battles in U.S. military history. A fifth of the Japanese garrison during this battle consisted of Korean laborers who were trained in combat roles. Like their Japanese counterparts, they put up a ferocious defense and fought to the death.[57][58] The Japanese, however, did not always believe they could rely on Korean laborers to fight alongside them. In Prisoners of the Japanese, author Gaven Daws wrote, "[O]n Tinian there were five thousand Korean laborers and so as not to have hostiles at their back when the Americans invaded, the Japanese killed them."[59] After the war, 148 Koreans were convicted of Class B and C Japanese war crimes, 23 of whom were sentenced to death (compared to 920 Japanese who were sentenced to death), including Korean prison guards who were particularly notorious for their brutality during the war. The figure is relatively high considering that ethnic Koreans made up a very small percentage of the Japanese military. Justice Bert Roling, who represented the Netherlands at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, noted that "many of the commanders and guards in POW camps were Koreans the Japanese apparently did not trust them as soldiers and it is said that they were sometimes far more cruel than the Japanese."[60] In his memoirs, Colonel Eugene C. Jacobs wrote that during the Bataan Death March, "the Korean guards were the most abusive. The Japs didn't trust them in battle, so used them as service troops; the Koreans were anxious to get blood on their bayonets; and then they thought they were veterans."[61][62] Korean guards were sent to the remote jungles of Burma, where Lt. Col. William A. (Bill) Henderson wrote from his own experience that some of the guards overlooking the construction of the Burma Railway "were moronic and at times almost bestial in their treatment of prisoners. This applied particularly to Korean private soldiers, conscripted only for guard and sentry duties in many parts of the Japanese empire. Regrettably, they were appointed as guards for the prisoners throughout the camps of Burma and Siam."[63] The highest-ranking Korean to be prosecuted after the war was Lieutenant General Hong Sa-ik, who was in command of all the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps in the Philippines. As you rummage through your closet to find green clothes to wear on St. Patricks Day, you might also want to add a touch of blue to your outfit the color originally associated with the holiday. That what Eires official color was when it became a Kingdom in 1542. Blue made its debut on the countrys coat of arms, in which a golden harp is depicted on a blue background. St. Patrick, the person the holiday is named for, is associated with the color blue because in several pieces of artwork he is depicted wearing blue clothing. Related: St. Paddys Day Adds Green to the Economy The color green only became associated with Ireland in the 19th century when it was used during the wave of Irish nationalism to show a separation from the red and blues that were associated with England, Scotland and Wales. It was also used in the new flag of the Confederation of Ireland. Seal of Ireland Although there isnt currently an official national color of Ireland, the most common color associated with the country is now green. Many people who celebrate St. Patricks Day assume green is worn because of the greenness of the countrys landscape. So now, when your friends and family and even their pets wear green on March 17, you can wow them with the history behind the legendary color. Below are some other little-known facts about the Irish holiday: 100 yards: The length of the worlds shortest St. Patricks Day parade, held in the Irish village of Dripsey. The parade spans the distance between the two pubs in the village. 10,000: The number of three-leaf clovers that exist for every four-leaf clover. 4: The number of places in the U.S. that contain the name shamrock, the floral emblem of Ireland. These include Mount Gay-Shamrock, WV; Shamrock, TX, Shamrock Lakes, IN; and Shamrock, OK. 16: The number of places in the U.S. that are named Dublin, the same as Irelands capital. Related: The 25 Best Beer Towns in America (and Their Best Beers) 1737: The year of the worlds first Saint Patricks Day Parade, held on March 18 in Boston. Story continues 2 million: The number of people who will participate in the New York City parade on St. Patricks Day, the largest parade in the world. 39.6 million: The number of Americans who claim Irish heritage 7 times Irelands population. 2nd: Irish is the nations second most frequently reported ancestry, falling behind German. 127 million: The number of Americans who will celebrate St. Patricks Day. 45 pounds: The amount of vegetable-based dye that is used to dye the Chicago River green. 100: The number of different St. Patricks Day-themed Hallmark cards that are available. 70 percent: The uptick in cabbage shipments during St. Patricks week. 75 percent: The percentage of fatal car crashes on the holiday that will involve a driver drinking twice the legal limit. Related: Solar-Powered Beer? 8 Ridiculous Ways the Government Wastes Your Money $35.37: The average amount Americans will spend to celebrate St. Patricks Day, slightly down from last years $36.52. 82.1 percent: The percentage of Americans who will wear green on the holiday. 390 A.D.: The year the holidays namesake was born. St. Patrick was actually born in Britain, not Ireland, but was kidnapped and sent to Ireland when he was a teenager. And his birth name was Maewyn Succat, but changed it to Patricius when he went to Ireland. March 17: St. Patricks Day falls on March 17 every year on the anniversary of St. Patricks death. 300: The number of churches that St. Patrick is said to have established. 100,000: The number of people St. Patrick is said that have baptized. 13 million: The number of pints of Guinness that are sold on St. Patricks Day. 3: The number of countries where St. Patricks Day is an official public holiday Ireland, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Montserrat. 19: The number of U.S. Presidents who claimed Irish heritage. 37: The highest number of leaves reported to have been on a clover. 1936: The year the cereal brand Lucky Charms was created, along with its mascot, Lucky the Leprechaun. 1970: The year the Irish law that had closed all the pubs for the day because St. Patricks Day had been declared a religious observance was abolished. The law was established in 1903. Related: The Extraordinary Rising Costs of Driving Drunk 2013: The first year St. Patricks Day was celebrated in space. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield photographed Tralee, Ireland from the International Space Station and then recorded himself singing the traditional Irish song Danny Boy. 2015: The first year an LGBT group marched in the New York City St. Patricks Day Parade, marking an end to a ban on openly gay groups in the parade. March 17: Also the date of National Muay Thai Day, a Thai holiday that celebrates Thai boxers. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico's efforts to form a new government got a boost on Saturday after the head of a rival party said it would negotiate with him after all. Fico, whose centre-left Smer party won the most votes but lost its parliamentary majority at last weekend's inconclusive election, has until Friday to form a government. Smer needs to find at least two and probably three coalition partners among the eight parties that won parliamentary seats. So far, only the Slovak National Party has said it has found common ground with Smer. The Most-Hid (Bridge) party, which has support among the Hungarian minority, at first refused to negotiate with Fico, saying it preferred a broad coalition of six centre-right parties. Such a coalition would also have to include the Slovak National Party (SNS), but its leader Andrej Danko said on Saturday he would not join because he feared that the inclusion of two protest movements would be a source of potential instability. "After today's decision by the SNS it's clear that a right-wing government can't be formed in Slovakia," Most-Hid chief Bela Bugar told reporters on Saturday evening. "We are willing to negotiate with Smer and we are calling on all standard parties to be ready for a compromise that would enable the formation of a stable government," Bugar said. Fico now needs another U-turn by a potential coalition partner in order to secure a parliamentary majority - possibly the centrist Siet (Net), which had also initially refused to treat with Smer. If Fico fails in his negotiations President Andrej Kiska is expected to hand the task of forming a government to Richard Sulik, head of the second strongest, economically liberal Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party. If Sulik then failed to form a government the possible consequences would be several, including a grand coalition, a caretaker cabinet or a snap election. Slovakia will take over the rotating presidency of the European Union in the second half of the year, giving it a stronger voice on issues such as Europe's migration crisis. The new government would also be under pressure at home to improve healthcare and schooling and tackle corruption, issues which a blamed for causing some voters to turn against Smer, even though economic growth has remained strong during Fico's time in office. (Reporting By Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Greg Mahlich) Paris (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande on Saturday hosted a dozen EU social democrat leaders who called for a relaunch of the European project to stop the growth of the far-right. Those attending the informal gathering included Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who, representing the radical leftist Syriza party, was granted "observer" status. Hollande warned that Europe was threatened with "obliteration", not just "disappearance" or "dislocation", if it failed to address the "economic and social emergency" engulfing the bloc. He called for investment to "do more" to help, arguing that funds should be earmarked to settle refugees, boost education and develop green energy. - Rising populism - Hollande was accompanied by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Secretary of State for Europe Harlem Desir as the group discussed how to kickstart economic growth against a backdrop of rising populism. On the eve of regional elections in Germany that could prove to be a breakthrough for the country's anti-immigrant right, Gabriel warned against "panic" and called for Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy of welcoming refugees to be upheld. "We will see tomorrow that an overwhelming majority of voters will cast their ballots for democratic parties," he said. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini also attended along with economic affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici and European Parliament head Martin Schulz, who urged the EU to find a way of fairly distributing the huge influx of migrants. "If there are no solutions among the 28, we shall have to find a solution among those who want to participate," Schulz told French broadcaster I-Tele. Schulz also took aim at France's far-right National Front, which he said preferred to seek out "scapegoats" rather than offer solutions or "concrete proposals" to social problems. Story continues "The National Front is a party which identifies scapegoats -- immigrants, the government, Eastern Europe, Europeans, Germans, whoever. "When you ask for solutions to, for example, job outsourcing or unfair competition then there's silence, nothing. Where are this party's concrete proposals?" Despite not winning control of any regions during last year's nationwide elections in France, the party, headed by Marine Le Pen, scored a record number of votes. - 'Build a wall' - Greece's Tsipras, meanwhile, went further than any of his colleagues, calling for progressive parties to unite to fight against austerity "and to build a wall against economic policies that help the far-right". A source close to Hollande said Saturday's discussions also covered Britain's potential exit from the EU and the need to prevent this from "morphing into a general debate". "Europe has spent much time on current issues -- Greece, migrants, refugees -- but it's time to put other issues back on the agenda," the source said, saying the group wanted to define a "growth agenda". Hollande oversaw a similar gathering in 2014 and Saturday's meeting comes just ahead of an EU summit on March 17 and 18 in Brussels. By Dominique Vidalon PARIS (Reuters) - The leaders of France and Italy led European Social Democrats on Saturday in calling for a batch of EU initiatives to revive economic growth, create jobs and restore hope to Europe's youth. Social Democrat leaders from across Europe, including German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and EU parliament head Martin Schulz, discussed challenges facing the bloc ranging from the migrant crisis to delivering sustainable growth. "Social Democrats must respond to emergencies ... and prepare Europe's future," French President Francois Hollande said after hosting the informal meeting in Paris. "There will surely be initiatives to take after the British referendum, whatever the decision is, even though we wish Britain stays in the European Union," he added. Britain votes on its membership of the bloc in a June 23 referendum. Hollande said the euro zone, of which Britain is not a member, must push for further harmonization, boost investment in green energy and digital technology, and provide security for its citizens as well as hope for its people and its youth. Much of the southern rim of the 19-member euro zone is blighted by high unemployment, particularly among young people. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the Social Democrat leaders would next meet in Rome after the British referendum. "It seems to me that the climate is changing in Europe, and we have to keep working on this. For too long Europe has been perceived only as a place of austerity, a place without hope, without growth," Renzi said. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was granted observer status at the meeting, said: "The progressive forces have to promote the need to return to the fundamental values of Europe, which are solidarity, democracy, social cohesion, but also to build a wall against economic policies that prepare the ground for the far-right that today threatens the future of Europe." Hollande called for Europe to "take its responsibility" in world crises, without waiting for a new U.S. president to be elected later this year. (Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos and Andrei Khalip) Stocks are notching their fourth straight week of gains, despite a hiccup from Mario Draghi. Will Janet Yellen help make it five straight next week? Yahoo Finance all-stars Andy Serwer, Nicole Sinclair, Jen Rogers, and Rick Newman break down all the action. Oil surges towards $40 Crude oil's had a crazy week, surging again today as WTI nears $40. Is the bottom in? The IEA thinks so, but Goldman Sachs says watch out, as a rapid hike up could crush prices again. Nicole Sinclair explains the crude conundrum. Winners and losers Stocks finishing the week on a down note include Fox Factory Holdings, the auto and bike suspension maker down on a secondary offering, apparel maker Zumiez on a poor sales forecast, and El Pollo Loco shares of the Mexican-style chicken chain got fried after a revenue miss and a poor 2016 forecast. Stocks surging in today's rally include Bojangles, another chicken chain that's up after a revenue beat; Ulta Salon, the cosmetics company looking good after an earnings beat on the back of strong same-store sales; and ConocoPhillips, the energy producer jumping today along with the sector as oil pushes higher. Looking ahead Hundreds of notable bands, movie stars and tech innovators are making their way to Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest festival, but the opening day keynote bought an even bigger star to the stage: President Barack Obama. Obama, the first President to attend SXSW, spoke at the Long Center for Performing Arts on Friday afternoon about the ways the government is using and encouraging tech innovation. Obama was greeted by a standing ovation and there were plenty of "We Love Yous" heard coming from the crowd when he took the stage for his conversation with Evan Smith, editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune. "First of all, I like excuses to come to Austin, Texas," the President joked. "We are in a moment in history where technology, globalization, our economy is changing so fast and this gathering, SXSW, brings together people who are at the cutting edge of those changes. "Those changes offer enormous opportunities but are also disruptive and unsettling," he added. "Part of my challenge since becoming president is trying to find ways that our government can be a part of the positive change that is taking place." He explained that the government has done a number of things to use technology better, like making it possible to apply for social security online. But there is more he hopes can be done. "The reason Im here really is to recruit all of you. It is to say to you as Im about to leave office how can we start coming up with new platforms, new ideas, new approaches to solve some of the big problems we are facing today," he said. To illustrate what he was talking about, the president admitted the failure of the Affordable Care website to work when it was first launched, saying it was "a little embarrassing for me because I was the cool, early adapter president." But then experts from the private sector were called in to assist and the problems with the website were solved. Story continues Read More: SXSW: How the Fest Landed President Obama Asked how the government could change the perception on the part of many that it doesnt work, Obama said, When government does great things, we take it for granted and it's not a story. And every day government is delivering for everyone in this room, whether they know it or not. He continued, Part of our task is to tell a better story about what government does. He also said that government agencies like the IRS or state Department of Motor Vehicles need to adopt online tech solutions that would make it easier for citizens to interact with government. Questioned about the digital divide, under which a high percentage of minorities don't have access to the Internet, Obama said, We have to make sure, given the power of the space, everyone is plugged in. These are solvable problems but it is not a matter of us passively waiting for somebody else to solve them, the president said. Thats part of the mindset I am trying to break. I tried to break it back in 2007, 2008 when I ran for this office. Referencing the governments issues with Apple, Smith asked Obama where he lands in the issues of privacy when it comes to the tech industrys work with the government. I am of the view that there are very real reasons that we need to make sure that the government cannot just get in willy-nilly to people's iPhones, people's smartphones, he said. However, he then went on to ask the question that if encryption makes personal devices impenetrable, then "how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we disrupt the terrorist plot, what mechanisms do we even have available to do simple things like text enforcement?" Otherwise, he warned, "everyone would be walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket." "My conclusion," Obama said, "is you cannot take an absolutist view on this." I am way on the civil liberties side of this thing, he explained. I anguish a lot about the decisions we make when it comes to keeping this country safe but the dangers are real, maintaining law and order and a civilized society is important... so I would caution against taking an absolutist view on this. During his remarks, Obama acknowledged that Edward Snowden had raised the issue of government surveillance, but he said, "the Snowden issue vastly overstated the dangers to U.S. citizens in terms of spying." Before ending his appearance, Obama returned to the subject of civic engagement again. We cannot solve the problems in government... unless we, the people, are paying attention. In an age when people are getting information through digital platforms, through the internet, it is critical that all of you who are shaping this environment are spending time thinking about how we can get people engaged," he said. Along with the President came plenty of security to the Long Center for Performing Arts. Hundreds of attendees, who had won tickets in a lottery, stood in line outside the theater more than two hours before the the start of the Obama event. Every attendee had to walk through metal detectors and was wanded by Secret Service. Bags were checked by TSA agents. The events center was surrounded by police with dogs, police on horseback, private security and Secret Service. Outside of the building, signature gatherers for various causes hoped to get some attention from people passing by. Among them: Planned Parenthood, a "Save Big Bend National Park" campaign and a protester with signs asking Obama to ban genital cutting. Before he arrived at the Long Center for Performing Arts, the President stopped at Torchy's Tacos on South First Street where he ordered "a Democrat" taco, and then threw in "a Republican" and "an Independent. He was joined by Austin Mayor Steve Adler. The President won't be the only Obama heading to the Austin-based music, film and tech festival. Michelle Obama will also give a presentation on March 16 about the "Let Girls Learn" initiative, which aims to improve education for girls around the world. SXSW runs March 11-20 in Austin, Texas. BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels shot down a Syrian government warplane over western Syria on Saturday, rebels and a military source said, although there were conflicting accounts on whether it had been brought down by a missile or anti-aircraft guns. The Syrian military source said militants had targeted a warplane while it was landing in Hama province, bringing it down, and calling the attack a breach of a "cessation of hostilities" agreement. A rebel group operating in the area, Jaish al-Nasr, said it had brought down the jet with anti-aircraft guns. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, however, said a rebel group had brought down the jet with two heat-seeking missiles. Syrian rebels have previously shot down Syrian warplanes with anti-aircraft guns. They have called on their foreign backers including Saudi Arabia to supply them with anti-aircraft missiles to confront Syrian and Russian warplanes. But they say these weapons have so far not been provided, reflecting concerns that they could end up in the hands of groups such as Islamic State. (Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Kevin Liffey) (Reuters) - A spokeswoman for U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Saturday denied a media report that he had canceled an Ohio rally because of security concerns. The Cincinnati.com news website had quoted Eric Deters, a local spokesman for Trump's campaign, as saying the candidate's Secret Service security detail could not complete preparations in time to hold the event on Sunday at Cincinnati's Duke Energy Convention Center. But Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email: "We don't know Eric Deters. There has been no cancellation." Ohio is among five states holding primary elections on Tuesday. A Trump rally in Chicago was called off on Friday after scuffles between Trump supporters and protesters. (Reporting by Idrees Ali and Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey) Cleveland (AFP) - A defiant Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail Saturday after a "planned attack" shut down one of his rallies, as the Republican faced scrutiny over the racially-charged tone of his White House bid. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton issued a stern warning to Trump after the scenes of violence in Chicago, with days to go until a crucial new round of nomination votes Tuesday, in comments that were echoed by President Barack Obama. "If you play with matches, you're going to start a fire you can't control. That's not leadership," Clinton said, adding to mounting charges that Trump's incendiary rhetoric against immigrants and Muslims has dangerously raised tensions. "That's political arson." Friday's violence flared after throngs of protesters -- many of them blacks and Latinos angered by Trump's anti-immigrant stance -- massed at the Chicago venue in a tense standoff with the candidate's own supporters, with fistfights breaking out as the meeting was called off. Trump has placed the blame for the disturbances -- which briefly triggered scenes reminiscent of the civil unrest of the 1960s with bottles hurled at officers and people trying to take over the stage -- squarely on protesters he styled as "thugs." Calling himself "energized" by the opposition, the real estate mogul forged ahead Saturday with two huge meetings in the heartland state of Ohio, which passed off peacefully despite fears of fresh troubles. As is now the norm at Trump rallies, a dozen protesters gathered in protest outside the cavernous exhibition center hosting his Cleveland rally, holding signs that said: "Dump Trump!" and "Donald Trump: Making America Hate Again." - 'Our communist friend' - Half a dozen police on horseback watched from a distance the heated -- but not violent -- exchanges between several black protesters and mostly white Trump supporters who yelled in their faces: "Get a job! Get a job!" Story continues There was a jittery moment at Trump's previous rally, at an airplane hangar in Dayton, Ohio, when a protester jumped on stage, forcing the Secret Service to intervene, but the event otherwise passed off smoothly. Bill Burns, who owns a one-man heating and air conditioning company from Sheffield Lake, Ohio and came to cheer the candidate in Cleveland, was clear on who was to blame for the previous night's troubles. "All the problems are from the protesters," said the tall, bearded 41-year-old, who wore a T-shirt reading "EBOLA," with the "O" made to resemble Barack Obama's campaign logo. "They're the ones out there, you see them standing on the American flag. What do you expect to happen? You're just adding fuel to the fire." Addressing supporters in Dayton, Trump said the Chicago skirmishes were a "planned attack" by organized agitators against his supporters -- the "nice folks." Later in Cleveland, he twice cast blame on "our communist friend," the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who has urged Trump to act against violence at his rallies but never encouraged his backers to disrupt them. "Where do these people come from?" Trump asked. "They're Bernie's crowd." - Make-or-break - Saturday's campaign stops come three days ahead of key elections expect to further winnow the Republican field, with Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich both facing make-or-break tests in their home states. Many in the party see next Tuesday's votes as the last best chance to derail the insurgent candidacy of the businessman Trump, who has so far won 15 of 24 early contests -- to the despair of the Republican establishment. Trump's three remaining rivals for the nomination --- Rubio, Kasich and Texas Senator Ted Cruz -- seizing a chance to bring the frontrunner down a notch, have been unanimous in condemning the rally chaos. "Forget about the election for a moment," Rubio told a press conference in Florida. "There's a broader issue in our country and this is what happens when a leading presidential candidate goes around feeding into a narrative of anger and bitterness and frustration." - Black Lives Matter - Critics have notably accused Trump of ginning up taunts -- and even violence -- against demonstrators. When protesters interrupted a rally in Iowa last month, he encouraged supporters to "knock the crap out of them," while in Las Vegas the billionaire said of a protester who disrupted his speech that he would like to "punch him in the face." President Obama weighed in, saying White House contenders should not stoop to "insults and schoolyard taunts and manufacturing facts, not divisiveness along the lines of race and faith, certainly not violence against other Americans." Until recently, most of Trump's campaign appearances had been in places dominated by the disaffected white voters who make up the bulk of his supporters. That was not the case in Chicago, whose population is about 33 percent black and 29 percent Hispanic, according to the most recent census data. The city is one of a handful roiled by protests amid allegations of deadly police violence towards African Americans, and is a stronghold of the "Black Lives Matter" protest movement. The movement's activists appear to have been among the hundreds who rallied to counter Trump on Friday. By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. general who until last week commanded the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan said on Friday he recommended broader scope for U.S. military activity as the country fends off a resilient Taliban insurgency. Army General John Campbell declined to disclose the specific powers he requested from President Barack Obama's administration before he stepped down as part of a normal leadership transition. But he expressed a sense of urgency, "otherwise it's not going to impact" the war in 2016. "I'm not going to get more people. So the only way that I can impact is potentially change some of the authorities we have. So authorities deal with: what you can strike, what you cant strike, at what levels you can do train, advise, assist," Campbell told a group of reporters at the Pentagon. "So I've asked for some modifications." The incoming commander, General John Nicholson, will also get to weigh in on the matter, Campbell said. Campbell acknowledged frustrations over the lengthy bureaucratic process behind decision-making in Washington, something other Pentagon chiefs, including Obama's three past defense secretaries, have also noted. "But I would tell you with President Obama every time I would get to the president, I got the decision I was really looking for," he said. Since Campbell's arrival in Afghanistan in 2014, Obama has rolled back some of his drawdown plans as Taliban militants made gains, Islamic State established a nascent presence and casualties increased among Afghan security forces. The Obama administration also gave U.S. forces broader authority to hit Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan, who Campbell said probably numbered closer to 1,000 than 3,000 fighters. Campbell's successor, Nicholson, inherits a conflict that is testing Afghan security forces and the roughly 13,000 international troops who remain, with insurgents contesting or controlling as much as a third of Afghanistan. U.S. rules for engagement are far more limited in Afghanistan since NATO ended its combat mission in 2014. Campbell acknowledged that even with new authorities, much would come down to the performance of Afghan forces, who he said needed to continue to come off checkpoints and become more maneuverable as they seek to push back the Taliban. "We could have all the authorities we want. If the Afghans aren't doing what they need to do, it's not going to make a difference," he said, even as he lauded their efforts so far. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) By Do-gyun Kim POHANG, South Korea (Reuters) - U.S. and South Korean troops staged a big amphibious landing exercise on Saturday, storming simulated North Korean beach defenses amid heightened tension and threats by the North to annihilate its enemies. The landing and assault drills on South Korea's east coast were part of eight weeks of joint exercises between the allies which the South has said are the largest ever. The North has denounced the exercises as "nuclear war moves" and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive. Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high since the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and followed that with a long-range rocket launch last month, triggering new U.N. sanctions. About 55 U.S. marine aircraft and 30 U.S. and South Korean ships, including the USS Bonhomme Richard and USS Boxer, which carry AV-8B Harrier attack jets and V-22 Osprey aircrafts, took part in the assault on beaches near Pohang city, the U.S. navy said. "They will penetrate notional enemy beach defenses, establish a beach head, and rapidly transition forces and sustainment ashore," the U.S. military based in South Korea said in a statement before the exercise. The North's military said it was prepared to counter the U.S. and South Korean forces "with an ultra-precision blitzkrieg strike of the Korean style". "The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK holding tightly the arms to annihilate the enemies with towering hatred for them are waiting for the dignified Supreme Command to issue an order to launch a preemptive strike of justice," it said in comments carried by the state KCNA news agency. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. CNN reported on Saturday that North Korea has been searching for one of its submarines that has been missing for days off its east coast. The submarine may be adrift under the sea or have sunk, perhaps after a technical problem during an exercise, CNN quoted U.S. officials with intelligence of secret U.S. monitoring of the North's activities as saying. North Korea has said it is developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles although doubts about that were raised after Western experts said publicly released footage of tests appeared to be fake. On Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watched as his forces fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea. This month the North conducted drills with what it said were newly developed large caliber rocket launchers. Kim has ordered the country to improve its nuclear attack capability by conducting more tests, in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted last week in response to the isolated state's latest nuclear test. Kim also said his country had miniaturized nuclear warheads to mount on ballistic missiles, although the U.S. and South Korean governments have expressed doubts about that too. The South Korean and U.S. militaries have said they had notified the North of "the non-provocative nature" of the exercises involving about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. The United States has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea. (Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel) LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's finance minister George Osborne will announce next week plans to sell 16 billion pounds ($23 billion) worth of bank assets which were rescued from Bradford & Bingley (B&B) during the financial crisis, Sky News said on Saturday. B&B, which specialized in buy-to-let mortgages, was nationalized during the height of the crisis in 2008. Its deposits and branches were sold to rival lender Abbey, part of Santander , whereas its loans remained with the government. Sky said Osborne will announce the sale during his budget statement on Wednesday but the timing of the sale by auction was unclear with the broadcaster citing sources who said the process may not conclude for many months. The Treasury (finance ministry) declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. (Reporting By Costas Pitas; Editing by Greg Mahlich) Trails to be completed in and near Beatrice will make travels in town and out of town on foot and by bicycle more accessible. Local trails that are nearing completion or are being designed will eventually connect to the two existing trails in Beatrice, forming a loop around town with portions running through Beatrice. The trails system will continue into Kansas. Beatrice city officials said construction on trails in Beatrice started in 2001. I think Beatrice has been very progressive in establishing this trails system, which I think any active community can utilize, said City Engineer James Burroughs. I think its an asset for the city of Beatrice and something that we need to keep pursuing. I think they get used a lot. An existing trail, Homestead Trail, runs north from downtown Beatrice to Lincoln. The city is responsible for maintenance of the portion up to Cortland. The other existing trail, temporarily called Trail A, runs from Riverside Park to Veterans Memorial Park, where it forks into Trail B that leads to Chautauqua Park and the Big Blue Water Park. Standing Bear Trail is nearing completion. It currently runs from Trail B, north of Chautauqua Park, alongside the Big Blue River and extends to Barneston. From there, a portion to be constructed will extend south to Marysville, Kansas. Burroughs said a concrete portion of trail to be poured will connect Trail B and Standing Bear Trail near Chautauqua Park to Homestead Trail, which currently ends near Second and Court streets. Those projects were funded though what we call the recreational trails systems, which is sponsored by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and the Federal Highway Administration, Burroughs said. We received a grant of $250,000 from that trail program to go to the trail projects. Another project in progress, Hannibal Park Trail, is a concrete trail that will run east from the Big Blue Water Park to Beatrice High School and continue north to Hannibal Park. Thats already designed, Burroughs said. Were going through right-of-way negotiations currently on that. That project was funded through Nebraska Department of Roads Transportation Enhancement funds. A separate engineering firm was hired to design that project. We reviewed their plans. Now they are working with NDOR. The Hannibal Park Trail crosses some portions of private property, Burroughs said. He expects plans to be finalized by November of 2016. Then, the project will go out for bid and be constructed hopefully within six to eight months, he said. Beatrice will pay for 20 percent of the costs to the trail and NDOR will pay for the rest. Additionally, plans for two other trail sections in eastern and northwestern Beatrice are in infant stages. One section would connect the future Hannibal Park Trail at Hannibal Park to the Homestead Trail near Sixth and Dorsey streets. That would complete the loop all the way around Beatrice, Burroughs said. Another section would be a westbound extension of Trail A from its current stopping point at Riverside Park. The trail would extend to the Homestead National Monument of America, Burroughs said. Burroughs said a goal in the work to the trails system is to add signage throughout and give each trail an official name. A map of the existing, in-progress and future trails in Beatrice can be found on the citys website, by selecting Living in Beatrice followed by Recreation and Hike and Bike Trails. Trails systems are important because they promote healthy living and well-being, they serve as a tool to reduce stress and their utilization is a great way to experience nature and spend time with friends and family, said Gale Lueth and Julie Feist. I think were unique in Beatrice in that our trails allow us to be able to connect to surrounding towns, Lueth said, mentioning Cortland, Pickrell, Beatrice, Blue Springs, Wymore, Holmesville and Barneston, which are all connected by trails. Support and use of the local trails is growing, they said. Membership of the biking club has increased from 18 to 49 over the years, Lueth said. I think with the fitness trend over the years, its turning that way, Feist said. Well see more people on the trails. Support of the trails from the city of Beatrice has also grown stronger, they said. Weve had some forward-thinking majors the last three or four have been, Lueth said. Without the trails, it would be difficult for local bicyclists to be as active as they are, Lueth said. Feist said runners could still run, but the trails make it so much easier and safer as the trails south of Beatrice are not in the midst of traffic. It expands on what Beatrice has to offer, Lueth said. After years of planning, funding, construction (including 16 bridges) and so on, the Standing Bear Trail from Beatrice to Barneston is nearing finalization. Work remaining includes paperwork, the addition of crushed limestone on portions of trail and shelters and toilets at some trailheads. Standing Bear Trail is currently owned by the Nebraska Trails Foundation. When construction is complete, the deed will be transferred to the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. The Homestead Trail Conservation Association will be responsible for maintenance of the trail. NTF is donating the trail segment to the tribe, which was forced out of its land in Nebraska and into land in Oklahoma in the late 1800s. Many tribe members died in the trek from Nebraska to Oklahoma, led by Chief Standing Bear. Read more about the donation in this story by our fellow Lee Enterprises newspaper, the Lincoln Journal Star. The donation and naming of the trail is a small way to honor and show respect for the Ponca tribe and Chief Standing Bear, Lueth and Feist said. Plans are in the works for a trails system that will connect Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. Some portions exist. Read more about the quad state trails system here. Registration is open for the first relay on Standing Bear Trail on Saturday, June 4. The relay is from Beatrice to Barneston and costs $35 per person with discounted rates for families. A 1-mile, family-friendly route south of Barneston will also be included. The relay is the first fundraiser for the Homestead Trail Conservation Association. Lueth can be contacted at gale.lueth@gmail.com. By Julia Edwards and Jeff Mason WASHINGTON/AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The White House has narrowed its search for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to three federal appeals court judges, Sri Srinivasan, Merrick Garland and Paul Watford, a source familiar with the selection process said on Friday. Srinivasan, an Indian-American who served under presidents of both parties before President Barack Obama named him as an appellate judge, and Garland, considered but passed over for the Supreme Court twice before by Obama, are considered the leading contenders, according to the source and two other sources close to the process. Obama is searching for a replacement for long-serving conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on February 13. Senate Republicans have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on any nominee picked by the Democratic president for the lifetime position on the court. Senate Republicans, hoping a candidate from their party wins the November 8 presidential election, want the next president, who takes office in January, to make the selection. A formal announcement could come as soon as Monday. That would give Obama the weekend to think about his final choice and make an announcement before Tuesday's presidential primary elections in five states including Florida and Ohio. Srinivasan, 49, and Garland, 63, serve together on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That appeals court has served as a springboard to the Supreme Court for several justices including Scalia in recent decades. Srinivasan, who was born in India and grew up in Kansas, would be the first Asian-American and first Hindu on the high court. Obama appointed him to the appeals court in 2013. The Senate confirmed him in a 97-0 vote. Srinivasan served in the Justice Department under Democratic and Republican presidents and worked as a clerk to the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican appointee. Garland, who has earned praise from lawmakers of both parties, is the chief judge of the Washington appeals court, where he has served since being appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1997, winning confirmation in a 76-23 vote. Prior to that, he served in the Justice Department under Clinton. Watford, 48, is a judge on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, winning Senate confirmation in a 61-34 vote in 2012. He previously worked as a prosecutor and in private practice. If confirmed, he would be the nation's third black justice, following current justice Clarence Thomas, appointed in 1991, and Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991 and died in 1993. Obama is the first black U.S. president. It was unclear whether the other two other candidates who had been expected to be interviewed by Obama, federal appeals court judge Jane Kelly and federal trial judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, were now out of the running altogether. Kelly is a judge on the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Jackson is a federal trial judge in Washington. Both were appointed to those positions by Obama. Without Scalia, the Supreme Court is evenly split with four liberals and four conservatives. An Obama appointment could tilt the court to the left for the first time in decades. Obama is traveling in Texas, where he spoke at Austin's South by Southwest festival on Friday and is appearing at Democratic fundraisers. He returns to Washington late on Saturday. (Reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington and Jeff Mason in Austin, Texas. Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley.; Writing by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) The first transplanted uterus in the United States has been removed just weeks after the procedure, and only a handful of these operations have been performed successfully in other countries. So what makes uterus transplants so challenging, and why might they fail? On Wednesday (March 9), the Cleveland Clinic announced that its patient who had received a uterus transplant had experienced a sudden complication and that the transplanted organ had to be removed. The transplant was initially performed on Feb. 25, in a 9-hour surgery. Doctors did not provide details about the complications that led to the removal of the transplanted uterus. However, the Cleveland Clinic said in a statement that it was reviewing the case and that it would provide more information as it became available. "The medical team took all necessary precautions and measures to ensure the safety of our patient," the statement said. So far, there have been 12 uterus transplants in the world, and five were not successful. Uterus transplants can fail for the same general reasons that any organ transplant fails, said Dr. Alexander Maskin, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), who was not involved with the Cleveland Clinic case but who is helping plan a uterus transplant program at UNMC. The main reasons for failure include organ rejection, which is when the patient's immune system attacks the organ; an infection of the organ; or problems with the organ's blood supply. In the case of a uterus transplant, a blood clot could impair or block blood flow to the organ, Maskin said. [The 9 Most Interesting Transplants] A woman who received a uterus transplant in Saudi Arabia in 2000 needed the organ removed about three months after the initial operation. In that case, the organ deteriorated because clots blocked its blood supply. Another woman in Turkey received a uterus transplant from a deceased donor in 2011, and she was able to become pregnant, but miscarried. And recently, in Sweden, doctors performed nine uterus transplants, and two had to be removed after the surgery. But five of the Swedish women were able to become pregnant and give birth. Story continues In the Swedish trial, the transplanted uteruses came from living donors, whereas in the Cleveland Clinic patient, the transplanted uterus came from a deceased donor. It's not clear if using organs from deceased versus living donors could affect the success of a uterus transplant, Maskin said, noting that just two women have received uterus transplants from deceased donors. "[It's] too early to speculate," Maskin said. The main challenge for uterus transplants is that the surgery is very new, so it will take time to perfect. "It's not so much more difficult [than other transplants]; it's just that it's a brand-new surgery, so the learning curve is steep figuring out how to actually do it," Maskin said. He noted that, three decades ago, kidney transplants took 6 to 10 hours to complete but can now be done in an hour and a half. Cleveland Clinic plans to continue its trial of uterus transplants, which will include 10 women in total, according to the statement. Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Aden (AFP) - At least 12 Al-Qaeda fighters and two policemen were killed late Saturday in fighting on the ground and coalition air strikes on second city Aden, security sources said. Fighter jets and Apache helicopters from the Saudi-led coalition carried out four air strikes in support of the security forces, they said. Clashes in the port city's Mansura residential district continued late Saturday after breaking out in the late afternoon after security forces set up new checkpoints, they added. Dozens of gunmen in balaclavas carrying the Al-Qaeda flag deployed to push back police trying to enter the neighbourhood, witnesses said. The police said in a statement that fighting against the "armed terrorist gangs in Mansura will continue to ensure the safety of residents" in the internationally recognised government's temporary capital. The air strikes -- which started after jihadists shot at an Apache helicopter -- hit a municipal office and a jihadist arms depot, witnesses said. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have taken advantage of the conflict between the Huthi insurgents and pro-government forces to reinforce their presence in the south, including in Aden. - Fighting in Taez - Meanwhile, pro-government forces on Saturday pressed their offensive aimed at breaking the rebels' months-long siege of the southwestern city of Taez, military sources said. Fighting raged north and east of the city, they said, a day after loyalists pushed the Iran-backed Huthis out of its western and southern suburbs. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi managed to "retake important positions" in a northern suburb where heavy clashes continued, one source said. But retaking the eastern part will be more difficult, the source said, as this is held by the Republican Guard, an elite army unit loyal to former president and Huthi ally Ali Abdullah Saleh. The rebels and their allies have been attacking residential neighbourhoods of Taez from this area, which includes an airport, an industrial zone and the headquarters of the special forces, the source added, without giving a death toll. Story continues Loyalists on Saturday morning pushed back rebels trying to retake the headquarters of the army's 35th brigade in the western suburbs, sources said. Loyalists last summer retook five southern provinces including Aden and have for months been fighting to win back Taez. - US-Saudi talks - Breaking the siege should allow for humanitarian and medical aid to reach about 200,000 besieged residents, Taez governor Ali al-Maamari said on Friday from exile in Saudi Arabia. The capital Sanaa further north has been under rebel control since September 2014. US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday said that he and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had agreed to work towards a ceasefire in Yemen. "We discussed Yemen, where we have agreed to work even more closely together in the next days to explore the possibilities of a political solution and we both agreed that it would be desirable to see if we can find a similar process that we did in Syria in Yemen to try to get a ceasefire," Kerry said. The United Nations has been pursuing efforts for peace talks, but UN envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said last month that "deep divisions" were preventing progress. Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United Nations, Abdallah al-Mouallimi, said this week that he hoped talks could resume by March 15. More than 6,100 people have died -- half of them civilians -- since the coalition launched air strikes against the rebels and their allies in March 2015, according to the UN. US expert: Use cyber security to fight crime Dr Hayes was invited by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) to address the forum on cyber security at Arthur Lok Jack. The purpose of Dr Hayes presentation was to raise awareness about how extensive the collection of sensitive personal information is and how it can be used to target employees and private citizens with cyber-attacks. Dr Hayes was quoted by Newsday as saying that, employers should spy on staff by setting up fake profiles on social media sites. However, he says this is inaccurate. He said he was actually demonstrating how companies in the United States are now using open source intelligence to identify insider threats as well as external adversaries. In one example, Dr Hayes showed how one employee at a major financial institution used an anonymous paste site to post the personal information of the companys client investors in the hope of getting money from interested buyers of this stolen information. The talk also highlighted how politically motivated hackers can announce their destructive intentions on a plethora of social media outlets and how companies are now monitoring these threats to improve their security posture. Dr Hayes has been quoted by numerous media outlets in the USA and in Europe where he frequently defends an individuals right to privacy. Dr Hayes says this has been especially important because he grew up in Ireland, where privacy rights and data protection, under European Union law, are of the utmost importance. Dr Hayes also has family in Trinidad and he says he continually hears about the fears and concerns of people in where he calls his second home and where concerns range from phishing scams, banking and shopping online and cybercrime. Dr Hayes says he is intent on raising awareness about how sensitive personal information is being collected in mass quantities and is putting individuals and companies at risk. During his visit, Dr Hayes also highlighted the importance of Trinidad and Tobago in developing its own cyber security and computer forensics capabilities in high schools, at university and in the private sector. He says the goal is to reduce crime and diminish the costs associated with continually spending millions of dollars on foreign forensics and fraud examiners. Dr Hayes says he looks forward to future visits to Trinidad and Tobago to raise security Jadel gets her prize Jadel beat out Salty for the coveted prize on the night of the final of the International Soca Monarch (ISM) competition that was held at the National Stadium on Fantastic Friday, February 5, last month. After accepting the prize, Jadel said, It is an honour and a blessing to be CBA 2016, then thanked God, who she said comes first, and everyone who was involved, namely the sponsors, her manager Big Mike Antoine and all the fans who voted for her. I am really privileged to be voted on talent. It had nothing to do with air play or how big the song was. It had to do with self-motivation, marketing self, and creeping then walking through troubles. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to shine and pave the way forward, she said. Asked what she would now do with her winnings, Legere said: I have to go and reinvest in myself and my music. I took three years off of law school, so I will go back into my law studies next year. I also have to pay off a lot of personal debts. Legere wants to do her own designing and a bit of writing her own songs. She also wants to invest in a business, such as a clothing store. But you know $100,000 is not a lot so none of it will be spent on vacations and leisure tours. Its about making that $100,000 multiply and I have to budget out a little for charity as well. Earlier, Peter Scoon, chairman, Caribbean Prestige Foundation (CPF) which produces the ISM stated that when they came up with the competition three years ago, it was with the aim of trying to develop younger soca artistes, since the winners of the Soca Monarch competition to date can be counted on one hand. It must be noted, though, that there are 11 winners to date. He congratulated Jadel and runner up Salty (Dillon Charles), stating that the major supporters of the competition were those who are on social media. He said some 100,000 had voted in the competition, and expressed the hope to continue the competition for the next 20 years as they continue to develop the product and soca industry. After praising the efforts of Jadel and Salty, Antron Forte, marketing manager, Carib Brewery said: In an ever changing social climate, where critical attention is needed for the development of our nations youth, we at Carib Beer are happy to be part of the alignment between culture and the advancement of this segment. He pledged his companys continued commitment to CPF to further develop the product for years to come. David Tardier, marketing manager, Ansa Automotive - (Honda) welcomed the partnership between Carib, CPF and other sponsors, including Slam 100 radio, then stated that his company needed to align itself with the culture in TT through young artistes. Forte was especially pleased to present the winners trophy to Jadel on International Womens Day, while Tardier found pleasure in presenting Jadel with her cheque. When you start digging on ground that hasnt been disturbed for 90 years, you can hope for a little discovery. Some of the bones of Nebraskas second Lincoln Capitol surfaced this week when workers excavated dirt in the buildings northwest courtyard for the installation of new fountains. Matt Hansen, Capitol Commission architect, is cleaning the decades-old, caked-on mud and dirt from the buried limestone that probably made up a portion of the facade of the old Capitol. Its exciting because youre getting to touch part of the past thats been sort of forgotten about, he said. Most people dont even know what the previous building looked like, so to be able to put your hands on it is kind of fun. Especially since its been gone for more than 90 years. Previous to this discovery, the Capitol Commission had only one piece of stone from the old Capitol. Now they have about four dozen. The commission will keep some of the stones in its masonry shop, Hansen said, for people on tours to see and touch. The history of the three Capitols in Lincoln began in 1867 with a two-story building with a central cupola, made of nativae limestone. But that first Capitol was poorly constructed and with inferior stone that soon began crumbling. The second Capitol was started in 1881 and finished in 1888. Upon its completion, a crack was discovered in the south wall of the east wing, caused by a too-short arch that was constructed over the foundation. Workers had attempted to shore up the building after discovering a spot where a deep excavation had been made in 1868 to dig sand for the first Capitol, according to information from the Nebraska State Historical Society. The Nebraska State Journal rebuffed the complaints that ensued, saying strangers and citizens passing through the building during the first session of the Legislature said it was the largest and best finished building for the money it cost. The Journal editorialized that in looking at a calendar of photos of the Capitols of other states, We guarantee the assertion that the judgment of nine out of 10 of our readers would be that the proportions of our capitol are as harmonious and the building as beautiful and symmetrical as any other of the forty or so buildings portrayed. A few hundred dollars would repair the arch and crack, the newspaper said. The Journal does not believe that there is a handsomer, stauncher or better building in the country for the money. But the second state Capitol turned out to be too small almost as soon as it was built. In 1915, plans began for a third Capitol on the same site. The second one was left in place and the new one built around it. Then the old was torn down and the center of the current Capitol stands in its place. Banker has faith in ATMs Banks spend quite a bit of money on IT infrastructure, so what youre seeing over the last few years is nothing new. This is something that banks all over the world face, and we are constantly looking at what we have to do to change to see that we keep up unfortunately with people who have tools to do things that are not particularly good, said Schnoor. But we are confident in our ability. We do hundreds of millions of transactions on a daily basis, and very few of them are fraudulent. Each bank has a 100 percent guarantee, and if indeed a transaction is fraudulent we stand behind it, and the customer is reimbursed. So its a very safe technology, and people use it all over the world. Newsday asked about the claim of a Latino gang in TT running a scam school. I didnt see that article, but as I said were an international bank in 55 counties around the world, and were very confident in our systems, and in our ability to counter any perceived threat to those systems. Asked if the present law was stringent enough against ATM scammers, she said banks have long been advocating for tougher penalties. Theres definitely a need to modernise the legal framework to deal with these new types of fraud, theft, whatever they are. The laws in TT need to be upgraded and its something the Bankers Association has advocated for a number of years, so that people caught trying to defraud the banks or individuals can actually be prosecuted. Asked about bills on Computer Misuse and Electronic Transactions, she said while such laws were passed some had not been fully promulgated, but just in sections. I would feel that there are other pieces that go along with the Electronic Transactions Act that need to be put into place. This is 2016, and a lot of these laws were put in place when ATMs and these types of fraud didnt exist. We need to be constantly upgrading our legislation. She urged the Police Force and Attorney Generals Office to constantly to keep abreast of these laws. Life Fund must work faster I am sure I speak for everyone here when I offer condolences to the parents of baby Miracle Cross, Deyalsingh said during Parliament Question Time. I have asked the Childrens Life Fund to look at more administrative procedures that we could use or not use to expedite very urgent cases. The Minister said an expedited process had been used to process Baby Miracles application. However, the baby, who had been born with cyanotic congenital heart disease, died last Thursday before approval was granted. In the case of Baby Miracle Cross, six hospitals were approached by the Childrens Life Fund, the Minister said. Of the six hospitals approached, and this was a very complex case, three hospitals did not respond to the request to perform the surgery. One hospital responded and that hospital was accepted. One hospital declined, and another one declined. Deyalsingh continued, The point I am trying to make is that not every request to a hospital to perform a surgery is automatically met with approval. In this case, six were approached, and only one accepted. It is unfortunate that on the day of approval, using the expedited process of a round-robin via email of that very day, it is very unfortunate that this baby died. The Minister outlined the normal process of application under the Fund. The Childrens Life Fund is funded primarily by the taxpayer of Trinidad and Tobago via the Consolidated Fund, Deyalsingh said. Therefore, there must be process and transparency. He said the current process to spend taxpayers funds, via the Children Life Fund, is as follows: 1) an application is made; 2) it is then processed by the Childrens Life Fund, requests have to go out to different institutions; 3) a board note is prepared; 4) the board meets and considers and approves as necessary; and 5) the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Health signs-off for action. All cases that come to the Childrens Life Fund are, indeed, urgent, the Minister noted. But for the very urgent cases as in this concrete example we have before us we try to short-circuit the system by foregoing a formal board meeting and seek approval or agreement of the board via an email round-robin. Parity yes, but not by accepting male standards Kangaloo delivered a passionate speech on the issue referencing Audrey Jeffers at the American Chamber of Commerces Trinidad and Tobago (Amcham) Womens Leadership Seminar. The event was held at Hyatt Regency Trinidad last Friday. Kangaloo even quipped that Jeffers Chaconia Gold medal-posthumously awarded in 1969-would not be found on ebay for sale. Kangaloo said as she addressed the largely female audience that in the struggle for gender parity one had to be careful that one did not struggle instead to become more male. Gender parity she said should look at challenging male gender domination. Kangaloo said even as she battled breast cancer she worked just as hard as her male counterparts even though none of them were battling breast cancer at the time. She said she sold herself a set of male centric values Kangaloo was one of the feature speakers at the event along with US House of Representatives delegate for the US Virgin Islands, Stacey Plaskett. Kangaloo said although the Caribbean had made strides with respect to gender parity there was work to be done. She noted that there were only 28 percent are females in the lower house and 38 percent in the upper house. Globally, Kangaloo said, 22 percent of parliamentarians are female. The numerically under-representation of women also translated to private boardrooms and corporations. Women, she said, needed to define exactly what was meant by parity. Amcham CEO Nirad Tewarie said for the society to prosper and grow issues such as gender imbalance/equity needed to be addressed. Tewarie noted event though more women were graduating from universities and entering non-traditional roles and yet were still not equivalent to their male counterparts. The society, Tewarie said, needed to have further dialogue on the issue. Many, he added, needed to look at their personal biases. We need to talk about the things that men need to do better. We are part of the problem, he said. Anya Schnoor, senior vice president and managing director of Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago Limited, said a conversation was needed on how a better future could be created for those present as well as other women. Schnoor delivered the remarks as on behalf of the bank- the sponsor of the event. House sends Court Bill to JSC Minister of National Security, Edmund Dillon, bemoaned that deportation of immigrants who have had children in TT can end up breaking up families and having a terrible effect on children some of whom then end up in foster homes. We dont want deportation to contribute to a life of delinquency and crime, he said of such vulnerable youngsters. Saying the bill holds parents accountable for their childrens behaviour, he claimed, There are no bad children, only bad parents. Minister of Social Development, Cherrie-Ann Critchlow- Cockburn, lamented that TTs families are in crisis, leading to more divorces and more children as victims and perpetrators of abuse. She hoped that families could be strengthened, that delinquent children can be given a second chance and that would not ditch their responsibilities. She saw the answer in a return to moral and spiritual values. Columnist OCallaghan buried Jones noted that she unfortunately died before the work was completed. According to the story, her pet name was given to her by a relative named Lance. He had been a very unfortunate person after his mother passed away, so much so that OCallaghans mother referred to him as Poor Lance. One Christmas, Poor Lance came to her mothers home to collect a cake. While OCallaghan was outside riding her new tricycle, which she got as a Christmas gift, he came to collect his cake. What a cutie! Lance exclaimed, then went on to write a poem called Cutie on the red bicycle. From then on she was called Cutie by her family members and close friends. Jones, in her contribution, said she would miss the conversations and the connection she had with OCallaghan. She said Cutie greatly influenced her thinking and her life, through the conversations they had, and the articles that were shared among the two. Yesterday, at St Theresas Church in Woodbrook, friends, family and loved ones paid their final respects to OCallaghan, a scholar, a stalwart member of the Catholic Church and a Newsday columnist. OCallaghan was a columnist who was featured in the Monday issue of the Newsday. Born in 1934, she had written two publications, Pan Beat, published in 1973 and Jouvert Morning, published in 1976. She also served as a Director of Social Science Programmes, for UNESCO in Paris, from 1965 to 1990. Dillon: Murder rate unacceptable He was speaking to reporters yesterday after the launch of Vision on Missions pre-release programme, Maximum Security Prison, Arouca. The murder toll as of yesterday stood at 93. He said after the last meeting he had with the acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams and executive, they were developing a different strategy to treat with the issues of crime especially murders in the country. When asked what that strategy would entail, he said, it would involve a concentrated effort utilising both the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force and the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service. On Wednesday, Dillon met with senior members of the Prisons, Police and Fire Services at the ministrys office, on Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain. After the meeting, members of the prisons association expressed their dissatisfaction with the meeting as the talks paid little, or no attention to the issue of protection of prison officers. Dillon said the issue of security for prison officers as well as other members of national security was discussed. At the end of the day the members of the agency of national security execute their job in a professional manner, and are there to execute the ultimate sacrifice, they place their lives on the line so the care and concern of offices in the Prison service, in the Police service, in the Defence Force, is really a sincere care and understanding, and we are going to do what is required to ensure they have the necessary protection to execute their duties efficiently and effectively, he said. Also speaking to reporters was Prisons Commissioner Sterling Stewart who said his officers were putting their lives at risk for the protection of society, and the reduction of crime and he believes that it was time for decisive action to be taken to protect officers. AG: Camille did no wrong In making this point during a news conference during the tea break at the House of Representatives, Al-Rawi said the Minister provided documentary evidence, including statements from Republic Bank and First Citizens Bank (FCB), to Rowley and himself which clearly demonstrated she is not guilty of any impropriety in this matter. Notwithstanding this, Al Rawi disclosed, What I am able to tell you is that Mrs Robinson-Regis, through her attorney at law, will be providing this documentation to the Integrity Commission because it is important as a person in public life to put to an end, the kind of mischief that has unfolded from the type of reporting. He added this information should already be on its way to the Commission. Expanding on comments he made on this issue following Thursdays post-Cabinet news conference, Al Rawi said the documents provided by Robinson-Regis showed that on January 8, she made a withdrawal from Republic Bank and then went to FCB and she deposited cash at FCB, cash which she had withdrawn from Republic Bank. The AG said Robinson-Regis at the time of the transaction, filled out a source of declaration of funds and returned it to the bank officers. Indicating that two days later Robinson-Regis was asked to provide evidence that the monies standing behind the deposit came from somewhere, Al Rawi said, She in fact provided copies of her bank account, taking money from Republic Bank, and that was provided to FCB and she heard nothing further. He said after a newspaper report made certain suggestions about the transaction, the Prime Minister called for specifically, evidence that the withdrawals made from Republic Bank were vouched, and that those withdrawals demonstrated the connections with the deposits made at FCB on the same day. The AG added, I am very pleased to confirm that both financial institutions demonstrate nothing other than full compliance with the law, and full propriety in this matter. Saying the entire transaction has been vouched, Al Rawi added, We have in fact received written correspondence from Republic Bank and FCB. That documentation conclusively ends this rather unfortunate sojourn into private matters., The AG said if the documentation did not have Robinson-Regiss bank account number and other information, I would have in fact been providing that to you today. He reiterated, From our perspective, the information provided conclusively deals with the issue. Stating that the Peoples National Movement (PNM) is not unaccustomed to persons making allegations against it, whether the party is in Government or Opposition, Robinson-Regis is sending in writing to the Commission, the clear evidence coming from Republic Bank in writing and FCB in writing which demonstrates that this transaction has nothing other than propriety involved in it. Noting that Robinson-Regis has not received the any correspondence from the Commission to suggest it is investigating this issue, Al Rawi said, This is being made by them, but this being done out of an abundance of caution. Declaring that Rowley has acted decisively and with dispatch on this matter, Al-Rawi said Robinson-Regis actions mirror his own when he handed over documents pertaining to Petrotrins discontinuance of litigation against its former executive chairman Malcolm Jones on the World Gas to Liquids Project (WGTL). This approach which we are taking as a Government is a consistent approach, he said.Indicating that conflicting reports of whether cash or cheques were involved was irrelevant, Al Rawi said, The question on the table was, was it really your money? Where did it come from? Those are the questions on the table. That has been fully and completely dealt with. Observing there are anecdotal reports on this matter, the Commission has the power to investigate matters on its own and Government makes no complaint on that, Al Rawi said he believed this story is, now properly at an end. However he added to, punctuate that equation, it will be passed to the Integrity Commission so that they are satisfied with anything they may or may not be investigating. Paula unfazed by Mittal closure She said the closure of the steel giants TT plant would not be ruinous to displaced workers or to the country. The former Point Fortin MP told Newsday that firstly, many other job opportunities exist for the 700 displaced workers and secondly, any such closure does not send a bad signal for TTs macroeconomics because another steel maker Nu-Iron is continuing to prosper. On the first point, she said while energy-sector workers have enjoyed good wages, the displaced workers should now look towards other sectors that she said are thriving most notably a booming manufacturing sector, plus agriculture and the maritime sectors. She urged employees to be open-minded to transferring their skills into these new areas. I remain very, very positive on the opportunities for employment, said Gopee-Scoon. Opportunities abound. There are available and we must be ready and willing to be part of it, and be part of the transformation of the economy of TT that will happen under this administration. She was especially keen on manufacturing which she said is now in expansion mode, with new areas being identified for export beyond the region. We want to enter new, vast markets, and plants will expand to full capacity. Asked if Mittals closure send a bad signal regarding the TT economy, she said no, as she noted the prosperity of Nu-Iron. Nu-Iron is a big player. Located at Point Lisas, it has 300 employees. They are not closing down, but are enjoying a healthy operation, and are now hiring. Last week they conducted interviews and want to increase the number of people in their organisation. Gopee-Scoon said she continues to meet investors on a daily basis, foreign and local, declaring, There are possibilities, and we are going to make it happen. Meanwhile, TT Chamber of Commerce CEO, Catherine Kumar, when asked if the closure sends a negative signal on the local economy, told Newsday she preferred not to comment until she had got the full details. Rowley keeps Red House project Rowley has been criticised for ignoring the Parliaments committee processes, particularly the fact that a joint select committee in the Tenth Parliament had had jurisdiction over the question of the restoration of the Red House. He yesterday said the Cabinet sub-committee chaired by him would consult with the Parliament committee. Very shortly, the Government proposes to bring to the Parliament, a request for the re-establishment of a Parliamentary accommodation committee for the purpose of consulting with Parliament on necessary revisions to the user brief, the Prime Minister said, in a long-awaited statement in the House of Representatives on the matter. On the issue of project schedule, Madam Speaker, Udecott has advised that the project can be completed by May 2018 by a sub-division of works into work packages. The project manager has informed the Cabinet sub-committee that such packages can be ready for public tender by July of this year. The sub-committee will maintain its oversight role to ensure that these schedules are kept. Rowley repeated once more earlier statements that $150 million had been spent since 2009 with nothing to show for it. He also said $23 million was spent on roof repairs and $31 million in designs alone. (It was unclear if these figures were in addition to the $150 million.) The Prime Minister said the Red House was a key historic building. He said a planned Parliament complex building could not go forward due to economic problems. He said there was a failure in the system of oversight of the project which, cannot be attributed to one Government. He said the matter was one inherent to the public sector Speaker scolds MP Padarath After Padarath accused Attorney General Faris Al Rawi of doing nothing to assist baby Miracle Khloe Cross, who died earlier this month, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh protested that Padarath was imputing improper motive against Al Rawi. In making his claim, Padarath said the infants family lived in San Fernando West which is represented in the House by Al Rawi. When Annisette George directed Padarath to withdraw his claim, the UNC MP responded by saying he did so with hesitation. As Government MPs objected, Annisette George told Padarath, When I have ruled. I wish you would desist from making any comment that contradicts my ruling. When Government MPs thumped their desks as she made this comment, the Speaker stated, Excuse me please members. I dont want any support. Turning back to Padarath, Annisette George warned him, It has happened before It wont be tolerated. Padarath complied with her ruling. Rollins Follow Rollins Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today State Sen. Roy Baker This week on Select File, which is the second round of debate, the full legislature took up my priority bill, LB 722, which creates a system of care for stroke patients. As a member of the Health and Human Services committee, I worked to amend the bill to significantly reduce the costs of implementing the Act from the original estimates provided by the fiscal office. Both the committee amendment and the bill were quickly approved and the bill was advanced to final reading. The Health and Human Services Committee advanced LB 1032, with amendment AM2473. This bill is the Transitional Health Insurance Program (THIP), introduced by Sen. John McCollister. AM2473 sunsets the program after three years. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) would be required to hire a consultant to analyze performance measures, revenue generated and savings attributable to the Act. A report must be submitted to the governor and the Legisalture six months prior to the legislative session when the program would terminate. The amendment also appropriates $63 million from the Health Care Cash Fund for the THIP fund, for purposes of the state match for newly eligible persons coverage. Three Health and Human Services committee members are for the bill, and three are against the THIP. I am the seventh member and the decision came down to my vote. I voted to advance the bill, reasoning that an issue of this magnitude should be decided by the full body of the Legislature and not terminated by the seven-member committee. While the main state budget is formed and advanced during the first session of the biennium, adjustments are made during this second, shorter session. Budget items of note to be debated include: road construction, the prison system and work at Offutt Air Force Base. A plan has been advanced to the floor (LB960) to create a transportation infrastructure bank with a $50 million transfer from the states cash reserve. Approved by the Legislatures Appropriations Committee this week, the bill is a compromise resulting from work with the governor to improve Nebraskas infrastructure. The amended bill contains a 10-year extension of the bank, meaning a total of at least $450 million in funding for the infrastructure funding program over its lifetime. The statutory authority for the infrastructure bank would terminate on June 30, 2033. The Department of Correctional Services submitted significant requests for additional funding for purposes including operating funds, continuation of the county jail program, and additional facilities at the Lincoln Community Corrections Center. The governors recommendation funded the agency request, and the Appropriations Committee concurred. In addition, the committee added $1.5 million one-time funds in FY2015-16 for staff recruitment and retention efforts. The Appropriations Committee also recommended a $13.7 million transfer from the cash reserve to improve the Missouri River levee near Offutt Air Force Base, to help secure federal funding to rebuild Offutts crumbling runway and keep the 55th Wing in Nebraska. The Appropriations Committee is leaving $10 million for any bills that might come out of the Revenue Committee or from senators proposals for the remainder of the 2016 session. This includes bills to provide tax relief. The two-year average increase in the budget is now at 3.7 percent. Floor debate on the budget bills is expected to begin next week. Demonstrators and supporters of Donald Trump clash in the streets of Chicago after the Republican presidential candidate cancelled a rally on Friday citing safety concerns. The rally was scheduled to be held inside the University of Illinois, considered one of the most diverse in the country. Scuffles break out between law enforcement and protesters, with demonstrators chanting racists go home and supporters shouting build that wall U.S. and Iraqi officials said U.S. special forces captured the head of the IS unit trying to develop chemical weapons in a raid last month in northern Iraq. The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. Helmi Hamdi, a nurse at the Taza hospital, says the wounded are suffering from infected burns, suffocation and dehydration. Eight people were transferred to Baghdad for treatment. Security and hospital officials say the latest attack took place early Saturday in the small town of Taza, which was struck by a barrage of rockets carrying chemicals three days earlier. (BAGHDAD) Iraqi officials say the Islamic State group has launched two chemical attacks, killing a three-year-old girl and wounding some 600 people near the northern city of Kirkuk. Authorities say six backcountry skiers have died in an avalanche on Monte Nevoso in the Italian Alps. Following spontaneous outbursts over the faltering economy and alleged corruption, groups are planning marches nationwide on Sunday against the government. Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey see some economic rewards from being on the receiving end of Syrias capital flight and brain drain. The surging Puerto Rican electorate, a swing demographic in the nations quintessential swing state, supported Barack Obama for president but backed Charlie Crist for governor when he was a Republican. North Korea said Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and "liberate" the South in its latest outburst against the annual joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. NEW YORK (AP) -- One person is dead and two more are missing after authorities say a tugboat overturned and sunk on New York's Hudson River following a collision with a barge north of New York City.... WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police are investigating whether former Russian Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, who was found dead in a Washington hotel in November, was brutally assaulted before returning to the hotel, a U.S. law enforcement source said on Friday. "We have become a society of anger, paranoia [and] intimidation. And artists, writers, academics -- people who have been trying to build bridges so as to promote coexistence and peace -- know that they have lost big time." 03/11/2016 08:59 pm ET.news articles During the interview, he added that he spent a lot of time with the FBI as CIA director, and he does admire them to an extent, however, in his thoughts, the authorities are not great telephone designers. He also added that he does not think that ... Another Point in Apple's Court; Ex CIA Director Against FBI We don't have to guess at the intentions of the country that for more than four decades has boasted the world's largest armed forces. A Beijing white paper on the purpose of China's long-term military strategy last May said, Building a strong national ... Paris acted in response to a request from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to shut down the Hamas Al Aqsa TV station for anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement by removing it from EUTELSAT. Hamas is designated by the EU a terrorist organization, which made the shutdown legal. Al Aqsa was soon back on air by connecting to the frequency of the Egyptian satellite Nilesat. He said the FBI is attempting to compel Apple to help unlock the iPhone out of convenience, not necessity, because it would take a long time for the agency to develop the tools and expertise to crack the phone itself. (The FBI has said in its legal ... Snowden says FBI doesn't really need Apple to unlock iPhone Members of the House Judiciary Committee were disappointed with the low level of technical knowledge displayed by FBI Director James Comey during a March 1 hearing about the FBI's encryption dispute with Apple. The feeling was shared by committee ... So the question now becomes, we as a society, setting aside the specific case between the FBI and Apple, setting aside the commercial interests, the concerns about what the could Chinese government do with this even if we trust the US government ... Here's What Obama Said at SXSW About Apple vs. FBI A murky security operation on Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan has brought attention briefly back to an area that for nearly 25 years has rarely seen an entire week pass without some sort of incident taking place The group (not pictured) allegedly formed a chain to intercept asylum seekers trying to board lorries to the UK Asked at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia whether indirect dialogue in Geneva between the Syrian regime and opposition could go ahead as planned on Monday, Kerry said: "Yes, it can." "Our teams are meeting today with Russia in both Geneva and Amman, ... US, Russia to meet on Syria truce violations ahead of talks Top US Air Force personnel have told the Senate they need more funds to modernize the existing military air fleet to ensure the country's dominance in the air ... Russia & China closing in: US fears losing air dominance to 'more ... Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told Russia's R-Sport agency that law enforcers were already investigating how meldonium had got into the bodies of Russian skaters. He said each case would be examined to establish whether competitors ... Russia to probe possible meldonium 'provocations' against its athletes Syrian Firms Take Refuge Abroad---and Create Jobs mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey see some economic rewards from being on the receiving end of Syrias capital flight and brain drain. Protests Grow Against Brazilian President mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Following spontaneous outbursts over the faltering economy and alleged corruption, groups are planning marches nationwide on Sunday against the government. Italian police: 6 dead in avalanche in Italian Alps mikenova shared this story from World. Authorities say six backcountry skiers have died in an avalanche on Monte Nevoso in the Italian Alps. ISIS Chemical Attacks Wound 600, Iraqi Officials Say mikenova shared this story from World TIME. (BAGHDAD) Iraqi officials say the Islamic State group has launched two chemical attacks, killing a three-year-old girl and wounding some 600 people near the northern city of Kirkuk. S... Donald Trump rally cancellation triggers protests and chaos - video mikenova shared this story from World news + Video | The Guardian. Demonstrators and supporters of Donald Trump clash in the streets of Chicago after the Republican presidential candidate cancelled a rally on Friday citing safety concern... Donald Trump cancels Chicago rally amid protests - live mikenova shared this story from World news. Republican candidate makes decision due to security reasons after meeting with police Turkey Is 'Sliding Backwards,' Says Top Turkish Novelist - Huffington Post mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Huffington Post Turkey Is 'Sliding Backwards,' Says Top Turkish Novelist Huffington Post "We have become a society of anger, paranoia [and] intimidation. And artists, writers, academic... Dead ex-Russian press minister may have been attacked outside hotel: source mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police are investigating whether former Russian Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, who was found dead in a Washington hotel in November, was brutally assaulted before... Man dead after tugboat, barge collide on Hudson River mikenova shared this story from AP Top News at 12:58 p.m. EST. NEW YORK (AP) -- One person is dead and two more are missing after authorities say a tugboat overturned and sunk on New York's Hudson River following a collision wit... North Korea warns of pre-emptive strikes against the South mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. North Korea said Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and "liberate" the South in its latest outburst against the annual joint military drills by the United States and ... Influx of Puerto Ricans could be game changer in Florida, countrys biggest swing state mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. The surging Puerto Rican electorate, a swing demographic in the nations quintessential swing state, supported Barack Obama for president but backed Charlie Crist for governor when he wa... To Maintain Supply of Sex Slaves, ISIS Pushes Birth Control mikenova shared this story from NYT > Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Modern methods allow the Islamic State to keep up its systematic rape of captives under medieval codes. Here's What Obama Said at SXSW About Apple vs. FBI - Fortune mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Fortune Here's What Obama Said at SXSW About Apple vs. FBI Fortune So the question now becomes, we as a society, setting aside the specific case between the FBI and Apple, setting aside... Source: Members Of Congress Dismayed By FBI Director's Lack Of Tech Knowledge - Fast Company mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Source: Members Of Congress Dismayed By FBI Director's Lack Of Tech Knowledge Fast Company Members of the House Judiciary Committee were disappointed with the low level of technical know... Snowden says FBI doesn't really need Apple to unlock iPhone - MarketWatch mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. MarketWatch Snowden says FBI doesn't really need Apple to unlock iPhone MarketWatch He said the FBI is attempting to compel Apple to help unlock the iPhone out of convenience, not necess... France shuts down Hamas Al Aqsa TV for incitement mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. March 12, 2016, 3:36 PM (IDT) Paris acted in response to a request from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to shut down the Hamas Al Aqsa TV station for anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement by ... The Gathering Storm Of The Chinese Military - Investor's Business Daily mikenova shared this story from Cyber Warfare - Google News. Investor's Business Daily The Gathering Storm Of The Chinese Military Investor's Business Daily We don't have to guess at the intentions of the country that for more than four ... Another Point in Apple's Court; Ex CIA Director Against FBI - Tech News Today mikenova shared this story from cia - Google News. Tech News Today Another Point in Apple's Court; Ex CIA Director Against FBI Tech News Today During the interview, he added that he spent a lot of time with the FBI as CIA director, and h... Russia to probe possible meldonium 'provocations' against its athletes - Reuters mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Reuters Russia to probe possible meldonium 'provocations' against its athletes Reuters Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told Russia's R-Sport agency that law enforcers ... Russia & China closing in: US fears losing air dominance to 'more ... - RT mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. RT Russia & China closing in: US fears losing air dominance to 'more ... capable adversaries' RT Top US Air Force personnel have told the Senate they need more funds to modernize ... US, Russia to meet on Syria truce violations ahead of talks - Daily Mail mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Daily Mail US, Russia to meet on Syria truce violations ahead of talks Daily Mail Asked at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia whether indirect dialogue in Geneva between the Syrian re... Far-right activists 'impersonated police to attack refugees for money and mobile phones' in Calais mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. The group (not pictured) allegedly formed a chain to intercept asylum seekers trying to board lorries to the UK mikenova shared this story from RSS. - . All Unquiet On The Tajik-Afghan Frontier mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. A murky security operation on Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan has brought attention briefly back to an area that for nearly 25 years has rarely seen an entire week p... Two French girls charged over 'concert hall terror plot' mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. Teenage girls handed preliminary terrorism charges over plot to attack concert hall in Paris - mikenova shared this story from Google. . ... Despite His Claims, Obama Was Not A Realist On Russia, Syria, And Libya mikenova shared this story from The Interpreter. President Obama, in the twilight of his career, did what every US President is expected to do, give a legacy defending interview . He defended his primary foreign policy ideas including th... Russias Post-Crimea Enthusiasm Wearing Off mikenova shared this story from Institute of Modern Russia. Russias Post-Crimea Enthusiasm Wearing Off This post has been generated by Page2RSS Opinion: Stalinist Nostalgia in Vladimir Putins Russia mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. The gulag is a distant memory. In todays Russia, people pine for an era of order and superpower status. Stalin, Russia's New Hero - New York Times mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. New York Times Stalin, Russia's New Hero New York Times And yet views like Zhenya's are becoming more common in Russia . Polls show a gradual improvement in perceptions of Stalin, who... Afghan Air Force Not Ready Until 2020, Top US General Says mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The Afghan air force will not reach necessary strength levels until 2020, according to a top U.S. general. General John Campbell, who ended his command of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanis... As UN Prepares to Resume Syrian Talks, US Condemns Cease-Fire Violations mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The United States on Friday condemned the Syrian government for hampering deliveries of humanitarian aid and for launching airstrikes that have reportedly hit civilians. The strongly word... Israeli Security Agents Shut Down Palestinian Media Operation mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Israeli police shut down a Palestinian media outlet in Ramallah on Friday, accusing it of using television and the Internet to incite violence. The Shin Bet security agency said the stati... Drone Technology Opens Up New Options for Photographers mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. An interest in remote-controlled helicopters and a lot of practice helped Skye De Moya and Ross Shafer get their business off the ground in 2013. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, their compa... - mikenova shared this story from Google. -. 15 ... - Lenta.ru mikenova shared this story from Google. Lenta.ru Lenta.ru , ... Russia, China oppose US missile-defense in South Korea - KMOV.com mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. KMOV.com Russia , China oppose US missile-defense in South Korea KMOV.com Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a news conference Friday after meeting with Russian counterpart Sergey ... As Ankara Eyes Tougher Visa Rules, Neighbors Fret mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The EU's drive to get Turkey to toughen its visa regulations to help resolve the migrant crisis is giving regional businessmen reason to worry. Poland Still Refuses To Honor Constitutional Court Ruling mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Poland's government says it is still refusing to publish a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal, which struck down key legislation that has blocked the work of the court. Two Ukrainian Soldiers Killed In Eastern Ukraine mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The Ukrainian military says two of its soldiers were killed in clashes between government forces and pro-Russia separatists in southeast Ukraine over the past 24 hours. Turkish President Erdogan threatens court's 'existence' after it releases two journalists mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. The court's ruling was 'against the country', he said Turkish Air Strikes Kills 67 Kurdish Militants in Iraq mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Turkey's air force has carried out air strikes against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, killing at least 67 militants, the military said Saturday. The March 9 raids were carried ou... Italy avalanche: Six dead and others injured in mountain slides in Alps mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. Rescue teams are currently searching for others trapped in the snow Today's Headlines and Commentary mikenova shared this story from Lawfare - Hard National Security Choices. Yesterday, news broke that an Islamic State defector has been disclosing inside information about the terrorist groups inner bureaucracy. The New York Times share... Paris attackers 'named in IS files' mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. The names of three men who carried out the Paris attacks in November appear in files leaked from the Islamic State militant group, according to German media. EU refugee deal hits setback as Cyprus objects to Turkey bid mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. Under the planned deal, Turkey would take back Syrian refugees who land in Greece in exchange for 6bn in aid United States accuses Apple of 'false,' 'corrosive' rhetoric in Federal Bureau of Investigation dispute - Examiner Gazette mikenova shared this story from james b. comey - Google News. Examiner Gazette United States accuses Apple of 'false,' 'corrosive' rhetoric in Federal Bureau of Investigation dispute Examiner Gazette In its filing, the federal government... Ex-CIA Director: Does Donald Trump understand the role of ... - Fox News mikenova shared this story from cia - Google News. Fox News Ex-CIA Director: Does Donald Trump understand the role of ... Fox News Recently I had a chance to comment on some policy proposals put forward by Donald Trump. I really didn't t... US ambassador calls Iran missile tests provocative mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says Iran's recent ballistic missile launches are "provocative and destabilizing." Samantha Power,... Obama weighs in on Apple v. FBI: You can't take an absolutist view - Ars Technica mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Daily Beast Obama weighs in on Apple v. FBI : You can't take an absolutist view Ars Technica AUSTIN, TexasIn his keynote address at the 2016 South By Southwest conference, President B... Syrians see few prospects for peace from Geneva talks mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. IDLIB, Syria/DAMASCUS (Reuters) - As peace talks are set to get under way in Geneva next week, residents in Syria from nurses to street vendors voice little optimism over the United Na... Brazilian president refuses to resign mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. The Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, insists she will not resign over her alleged mishandling of the economy after moves to impeach her. EU Agrees to Framework With Cuba on Closer Ties - Wall Street Journal mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Wall Street Journal EU Agrees to Framework With Cuba on Closer Ties Wall Street Journal BRUSSELSThe European Union reached agreement with Cuba on Friday on a new framework allowing cl... FDA says GMO mosquito likely OK to fight Zika in Florida - CNN mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. CNN FDA says GMO mosquito likely OK to fight Zika in Florida CNN (CNN) The U.S. came one step closer today to getting its first genetically modified mosquito to fight the Zika vi... US: No significant impact from field test of genetically modified mosquitoes - West Hawaii Today mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. West Hawaii Today US: No significant impact from field test of genetically modified mosquitoes West Hawaii Today MIAMI (AP) A field trial releasing genetically modified mosquit... Cuba and Europe sign deal normalizing relations mikenova shared this story from World. Cuba and the European Union have signed a deal normalizing their relations after years of tensions spawned by disagreement over human rights on the island. Why the U.S.-U.K. Relationship Is Less Special than Ever mikenova shared this story from World TIME. Almost 70 years to the day since Winston Churchill immortalized the term in his historic Sinews of Peace address, the special relationship between the U.K. and U... Non-aligned countries reject US sanctions on Venezuela mikenova shared this story from World. Venezuelas U.N. ambassador has read out a statement from a group of 120 developing countries rejecting President Barack Obamas decision to renew sanctions on several of his countrys top officials. Russia seeks details on aide's US death mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. Russian officials criticise a lack of communication by the US authorities over the death of Mikhail Lesin, a former aide to President Putin. Kerry arrives in Saudi for talks on Syria, Yemen wars mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. HAFR AL-BATIN, Saudi Arabia (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry landed Friday at a sprawling military facility in northeastern Saudi Arabia where the kingdo... Iran to Be Blamed for Cyberattack on New York Dam, U.S. Official Says mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. A criminal probe by the Justice Department has concluded that Iran was behind a cyberattack on a dam outside of New York City in 2013. According to the Associated Press , a U.S. of... Pentagon Wont Hold Captured ISIS Fighters Beyond 30 Days mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. The Pentagon said Friday that it will not hold captured ISIS operatives beyond 30 days, after which they will be turned over to the Iraqi government. Fourteen to 30 days is a ballp... Poland turns from model of democracy into European problem mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. For years, Poland was considered a model of democratic transformation, with Lech Walesa's peaceful revolution heralding a new era based on the rule of law. Purported banker in New York admits he was actually a Russian spy mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. A man posing as a banker in the United States admitted Friday he was actually a Russian spy helping run a conspiracy that could have been ripped from the headlines of the Cold War era, p... Moscows Desire to Micro-Manage the North Caucasus Causing Multiple Inefficiencies mikenova shared this story from North Caucasus Analysis - The Jamestown Foundation. On February 19, the governor of North OssetiaAlania, Tamerlan Aguzarov, suddenly died at a Moscow hospital from complications of pneumonia. The 52-year-... Chechens Fighting in Syria Increasingly Joining Forces With Islamic State mikenova shared this story from North Caucasus Analysis - The Jamestown Foundation. Chechen militants in Syria have been going through organizational changes since last summer. The position of the Chechen militants in the Middle East was... Kadyrov at Loggerheads With Chechen Diaspora in Europe mikenova shared this story from North Caucasus Analysis - The Jamestown Foundation. Ramzan Kadyrov has repeatedly voiced discontent with the actions of Chechens who reside in Europe. During the first years of his rule in Chechnya, he man... Chechnyas Planned New Oil Refinery Marks a Victory Over Rosneft mikenova shared this story from North Caucasus Analysis - The Jamestown Foundation. Many analysts say the two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s were caused by the republics oil. These analysts, however, have tended to overlook the fact that... FBI channels Kafka with new rules on slurping Americans' private ... - The Register mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. The Register FBI channels Kafka with new rules on slurping Americans' private ... The Register Comment The murky world of surveillance turned a little more Kafkaesque this week. The FBI ... Minister of Defense of Georgia Continues to Knock at NATOs Door mikenova shared this story from Eurasia Daily Monitor - The Jamestown Foundation. Georgias newly appointed Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze recently visited the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), where he h... Berlin, Paris Side With Moscow Against Kyiv In Normandy Groups Meeting mikenova shared this story from Eurasia Daily Monitor - The Jamestown Foundation. As anticipated (see EDM , February 26), the Normandy meeting on March 34, in Paris, cornered Ukraine to extract its acceptance of elections in the Rus... Death of Top Chechen IS Commander May Change the Face of the Syrian Insurgency mikenova shared this story from Eurasia Daily Monitor - The Jamestown Foundation. On March 5, in the fighting for the city of al-Shaddadi in eastern Syria, one of the most influential commanders of the so-called Islamic State (IS), Tarkh... Germany, Norway Eye Joint Submarine Procurement mikenova shared this story from Defense News - Home. Norway plans to complete the definition phase for procurement of submarines in the first half of this year and may consider a joint purchase with another country. ... NATO, European Commission Chiefs Hail Cooperation on Security, Migrant Crisis mikenova shared this story from Defense News - Home. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker have discussed ways to increase joint work to counter hybrid threats in several areas, inc... Two Israelis injured in shooting attack on car on Rte 443 mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. March 11, 2016, 10:26 PM (IDT) A Palestinian drive-by vehicle opened fire on an Israeli car driving on Rte 443 near the Beit Horon checkpoint Friday night. Two young men in the car were inj... Missile alert in Israel locations around Gaza Strip mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. March 11, 2016, 10:38 PM (IDT) Palestinian rocket fire sets off red alert in Israeli locations around the Gaza Strip Friday night, according to first reports. Chicago Psychiatrist Who Took Kickbacks to Prescribe Mental Health Medication Sentenced to Nine Months in Federal Prison mikenova shared this story from Current. Chicago Ex-CIA director: Apple 'generally in the right' on encryption, FBI not 'very good telephone designers' - 9 to 5 Mac mikenova shared this story from cia - Google News. 9 to 5 Mac Ex- CIA director: Apple 'generally in the right' on encryption, FBI not 'very good telephone designers' 9 to 5 Mac Speaking with CNBC's Squawk Box, former CIA director James W... Ex-CIA director: Apple 'generally in the right' on encryption, FBI not ... mikenova shared this story from cia - Google Blog Search. Speaking with CNBC's Squawk Box, former CIA director James Woolsey gave his personal thoughts on the FBI's request to have Apple unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino... Russia seeks US documents in millionaire's death - USA TODAY mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. USA TODAY Russia seeks US documents in millionaire's death USA TODAY Russia's prosecutor general has asked U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch for documents regarding the mysterious d... Russia to disarm world's largest nuclear ballistic missile submarine - RT mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. RT Russia to disarm world's largest nuclear ballistic missile submarine RT Working in accordance with the New START treaty between Russia and US, the country's leading Zvezdochka ship... Mikhail Lesin death: Vladimir Putin's propaganda chief died from 'blunt force' not heart attack as was suggested mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. An autopsy found Mikhail Lesin suffered head injuries Russian spy pleads guilty in New York to posing as a banker mikenova shared this story from Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news. Evgeny Buryakov faces a decade in prison after admitting working for the Russian secret service Mystery Of Lesin's Death Deepens As Russia Asks US For More Information mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The mystery surrounding Mikhail Lesin, the former Russian press minister who died in Washington after suffering blunt force trauma to the head, deepened as news reports s... German broadcaster: Islamic State files refer to some Paris attackers mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. A cache of leaked documents containing the names of recruits into the Islamic State group includes references to several of the men who carried out the November attacks in Paris, a Germa... Russian Spy Pleads Guilty, Walked Into FBI 'Trap' - ABC News mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. New York Daily News Russian Spy Pleads Guilty, Walked Into FBI 'Trap' ABC News A Russian spy, who posed as a banker in New York City, today pleaded guilty to espionage-related ch... Arab League says Hezbollah 'terrorists' mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. The Arab League declares the Lebanese Shia Muslim movement Hezbollah a terrorist organisation, following a move by Arab Gulf states a week ago. mikenova shared this story from golosamerikius's YouTube Videos. From: golosamerikius Duration: 01:23 , , . Death of former Putin aide: conspiracy theories abound back home in Russia mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Some bloggers suggest Mikhail Lesin could be in US witness protection and faked his own death while others say it could have happened as a result of a fight The announcement that a f... U.S. Secretary of State Kerry arrives in Saudi Arabia, to meet King Salman mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. HAFR AL-BATIN, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Saudi Arabia on Friday and was due to hold talks with King Salman and other senior Saudi officials... Police hunt for 2 gunmen behind cookout ambush that killed 6 mikenova shared this story from AP Top News at 1:23 p.m. EST. WILKINSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Police on Friday sought to identify the two men who ambushed a backyard cookout and methodically shot and killed six people, including a pregnant woma... Puerto Rico reports 201 confirmed Zika cases mikenova shared this story from World. Puerto Ricos Health Department is reporting 201 confirmed Zika cases amid warnings the U.S. territory could face an epidemic of the mosquito-borne virus. Arab League brands Hezbollah group a terrorist organization mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes News. Egypt's state news agency says the Arab League has formally branded Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group a terrorist organization. Islamic States terror against Christians is genocide, groups charge mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes News. The U.S. State Department has until March 17 to decide whether the terror being waged by the Islamic State against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East meets... Russia's military is recruiting dolphins, and their mission is a mystery mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes News. Russia's military is looking for a few good dolphins to join its navy five, to be exact, with perfect teeth, average length and a willingness to "display motor activity." Learning to Fight Like an Israeli mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. On December 27, 1985, gunfire and explosions erupted at the El Al ticket counter inside the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport in Rome. Four gunmen from the Palestinian terrorist g... , " " mikenova shared this story from SvobodaRadio's YouTube Videos. From: SvobodaRadio Duration: 00:00 "", , ... - mikenova shared this story from Google. , ... Russia in Review mikenova shared this story from Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - US-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism. March 11, 2016 Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nucl... Turkish TV station aims to switch views mikenova shared this story from Europe News. Slick English-language channel at forefront of efforts by President Erdogan to alter perceptions Reports: North Korean Leader Orders More Nuclear Tests mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the country to improve its nuclear attack capability after watching a recent ballistic missile launch test, the country's state media reports. Nort... Plan Approved to Shift Control of Internet From US mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Members of ICANN, the U.S.-based non-profit agency that has managed oversight of the international Internet since its creation, agreed upon a final framework agreement that would shift ov... Uncomfortable truths over Libya mikenova shared this story from Europe News. President Obama is right to lament the Anglo-French failure to follow through Russia's military wants to buy five dolphins for $25000 and no, they don't want to disclose why - Business Insider mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Business Insider Russia's military wants to buy five dolphins for $25000 and no, they don't want to disclose why Business Insider The Russian Ministry of Defense has announced plans t... Is Vladimir Putin's 'lover' Russia's secret weapon in Maria Sharapova scandal? - Daily Mail mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Daily Mail Is Vladimir Putin's 'lover' Russia's secret weapon in Maria Sharapova scandal? Daily Mail The glamorous former gymnast believed to be Vladimir Putin's secret lover has land... Main Syrian opposition groups to attend Geneva peace talks mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. Syria's main, Western-backed opposition groups said Friday they will attend the U.N.-sponsored indirect peace talks with the Damascus government in Geneva, starting in two days' time, am... David Cameron rebuts Johnson's Canada model for UK video mikenova shared this story from World news + Video | The Guardian. David Cameron, speaking to the Welsh conservatives on Friday, criticises Boris Johnsons suggestion that the UK could follow a Canadian-style free-trade agreement system.... Arab League brands Hezbollah group a terrorist organization - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Daily News & Analysis Arab League brands Hezbollah group a terrorist organization Washington Post CAIRO Egypt's state news agency says the Arab League has formally branded Lebanon's ... Investigators scour Islamic State group documents mikenova shared this story from World. Counterterrorism investigators say they are beginning to pour through a cache of documents detailing what could be the most comprehensive look into the recruiting networks luring fighters into the I... Evgeny Buryakov Pleads Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court in Connection with Conspiracy to Work for Russian Intelligence mikenova shared this story from Current. New York US Government Hits Back, Calls Apple's Security Stance 'False' - State of the State KS (subscription) mikenova shared this story from james b. comey - Google News. US Government Hits Back, Calls Apple's Security Stance 'False' State of the State KS (subscription) In its filing, the federal government again insisted that the order in this... Obama NATO Pick Has Wrong Approach to Russia, Some Republicans Warn mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. Some Republicans believe that the Obama administrations choice for NATOs next deputy secretary general has not had the right approach to Russia. According to a report in Bloomberg... . - 11 , 2016 mikenova shared this story from - . ? ... , - mikenova shared this story from Google. , , , 28,4%, ... Telephone Justice: Russian Prankster Says His Phone Calls Changed Verdicts mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russian prankster Sergei Davydov says he has influenced numerous court decisions by phoning judges in the guise of an influential official and instructing them to rule in... Why the OPM Hack Is Far Worse Than You Imagine mikenova shared this story from Lawfare - Hard National Security Choices. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach involves the greatest theft of sensitive personnel data in history. But, to date, neither the scope nor scal... Russia scolds Britain for saying the Kremlin dreams of Brexit mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. LONDON (Reuters) - Russia scolded Britain on Friday for saying that Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin dreamed of weakening the West with a British exit from the European Union. Egypts news agency: Arab League brands Lebanese Hezbollah group a terrorist organization mikenova shared this story from World. Egypts news agency: Arab League brands Lebanese Hezbollah group a terrorist organization. Polands Government Is Accused of Violating Separation of Powers mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. A European watchdog group on Friday said Polands right-wing government had blunted the functions of the countrys constitutional court. IS commander 'limped away' from attack mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. A top commander of so-called Islamic State (IS) may have survived a recent US air strike in north-eastern Syria, US defence officials in Baghdad say. London Mayor Launches 'Brexit' Campaign With Nod to Canada mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Boris Johnson said Britain should adopt a model similar to Canada to trade with the European Union, in his first major campaign speech in favor of the U.K.s exit from the EU. The real loser in Barack Obama's worldview? David Cameron. mikenova shared this story from World. A new article suggests that Obama's view of his British counterpart is remarkably bleak. Germany's Nationalist Party Set for Gains as Three States Vote mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. A rising nationalist party is expected to ride unease about Chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policy to perform strongly in three German state elections this weekend, the first significa... Taliban Assassinate Pakistani Army Officer mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Taliban militants have shot dead a Pakistani military officer in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Officials say Lieutenant Colonel Tariq Ghafoor was returning from a mosque after Friday... Tymoshenko: Ukraine a corruption conglomerate mikenova shared this story from World. Ukraines vehement former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, says the leaders who came to power following 2014s bloody upheavals are stifling the country by tolerating corruption. Arab League labels Hezbollah a terrorist organization mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. CAIRO (Reuters) - The Arab League labeled Shi'ite Hezbollah a terrorist organization at its meeting on Friday, Egyptian state news agency MENA said. Arkansas Drug Trafficking Enterprise Dismantled mikenova shared this story from All Stories. Drug trafficking enterprise dismantled, leader gets 20 years after multi-agency investigation. US general in Korea nominated as next NATO supreme commander mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. BRUSSELS (AP) - NATO's chief decision-making body says it has approved the nomination of the U.S. Army general currently in charge of American forces in Korea to ... Food Stamp Beneficiaries Exceed 45 Million for 56 Straight Months mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. The number of individuals receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps, has exceeded 45 million for 56 straight months, acco... Nancy Reagan's funeral draws political heavyweights, stars from bygone era mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes News. Political and Hollywood heavyweights from past and present were gathering Friday for the funeral of Nancy Reagan a reflection of the unique and enduring cultural sway held by the ... The FBI Wants Schools to Spy on Their Students' Thoughts | Just ... - Just Security mikenova shared this story from fbi aclu report - Google News. The FBI Wants Schools to Spy on Their Students' Thoughts | Just ... Just Security Imagine you're a high school principal. An FBI document lands on your desk. It's called Pre... - mikenova shared this story from golosamerikius's YouTube Videos. From: golosamerikius Duration: 01:04 - , . Is Moscow squeezing Moody's out of Russia? - CNBC mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. CNBC Is Moscow squeezing Moody's out of Russia ? CNBC The Kremlin is set to usher in rules next year that will require agencies to create new, Russia -regulated subsidiaries. Under th... Reports Suggest Former Putin Aide Involved in Fight Before Mysterious Death mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. The mysterious death of Mikhail Lesin, former presidential aide and media tycoon, took a new turn on Thursday when U.S. forensic specialists reported new evidence that he died... Russian Banker Accused Of Spying In U.S. Pleads Guilty mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. A Russian banker accused in the United States of participating in a spy ring has pleaded guilty to conspiracy. FBI 'could force Apple to hand over private key' - The Guardian mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. The Guardian FBI 'could force Apple to hand over private key' The Guardian The department wrote in a footnote to its filing: The FBI cannot itself modify the software on Farook's iPhone... U.S. nominates Scaparrotti as top NATO commander mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama nominated U.S. Army General Curtis Scaparrotti on Friday to become NATO's top military commander, the Pentagon said, a key role as NATO bu... Chilling Glimpse Into Islamic State War Machine mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. Sky News finds booby-trapped bombs, a "rape house" and a makeshift gallows in a Syrian town liberated by Kurdish fighters. Two Gunmen Killed In Russia's Daghestan mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Police in Russia's North Caucasus region of Daghestan have killed two gunmen. Oil Price Crash Was Not Saudi Arabias Fault mikenova shared this story from World TIME. Quite simply, the Saudis want to maintain their market share, but their means to control that are dwindling. The whole internet is jam-packed with analysis portraying Saudi Arabia and OPEC as... Obama Turns His Attention to Diapers mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. President Obamas latest priority as he winds down his final months in the White House is solving Americas diaper divide using technology. The White House is getting creative t... Escalating the War on Looting mikenova shared this story from NYT > Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The international community is focusing on the marketplace to scare off demand for stolen artifacts. D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue Takes $7 Million From Taxpayers Bank Accounts mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. The D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue withdrew $7 million from 581 taxpayers bank accounts because of a computer error, the Washington Post reported . According to officials, the ta... Accused Russian spy pleads guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Evgeny Buryakovs plea comes less than a month before his federal trial for failing to register as an agent and not notifying US authorities A Russian citizen whom US authorities acc... ? mikenova shared this story from SvobodaRadio's YouTube Videos. From: SvobodaRadio Duration: 30:01 ? . ... The Show Trial Must Go On mikenova shared this story from The Interpreter. The actors change, but the stage always looks the same. The wood-paneled courtroom. The officious judge robed in black. The stern prosecutor. That creepy cage for the accused and the stone... Apple Accuses US Government of 'Smear' Campaign mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Apple has accused the U.S. federal government of intending to 'smear' it as the fight over whether it can be forced to help law enforcement access the iPhone owned by San Bernardino gunma... Moscow Asks Washington For Information Regarding Lesin Death mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russia's Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika has made an official request to Washington for information concerning the death of former Russian press minister and presidential ... Theyve escaped war and crossed the sea. Now Europe wants to send them back. mikenova shared this story from Europe. On the Greek island of Lesbos, refugee boats keep rolling in. But the flows could soon be reversed. Op-Ed Columnist: Chappatte on Europes Deal With Turkey mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. European Union leaders and Turkey reached a tentative deal this week to help stem the flow of migrants to the Continent. Scaparrotti nominated to replace Breedlove at EUCOM, NATO mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes News. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti was tapped Friday to command U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, where he will face a once tranquil security environment transformed by old Cold War tension... Chappatte on Europes Deal With Turkey - The New York Times mikenova shared this story . Advertisement Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Share This Page Email Share Tweet Save more Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story European Union leaders... Low Oil Prices Force Russian Defense Cuts mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Russian defense procurement will drop by about 10% this year as low oil-and-gas prices drain income from the state budget, according to the head of the conglomerate that controls much ... IEA Sees Signs Oil Prices Might Have Bottomed Out mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Crude-oil prices may have bottomed out as Irans return to the market has been less dramatic than the country promised, the IEA said. Russia, China oppose US missile-defense in South Korea mikenova shared this story from World. The foreign ministers of China and Russia are opposing the possible deployment of an advanced American missile-defense system in South Korea. Cologne: 4th man arrested over New Year crimes mikenova shared this story from World. Cologne police say a fourth man has been taken into custody after they released a series of photos of people suspected of sexual harassment and assaults in the city on New Years Eve. Putin: Russian arms upgrade wont be affected by budget cuts mikenova shared this story from World. President Vladimir Putin says the Russian militarys arms modernization program wont be affected by budget cuts prompted by the countrys economic problems. German Chancellor Angela Merkel Condemns Closure of the Balkan Route to Refugees mikenova shared this story from World TIME. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has criticized other European countries for shutting the door to refugees and migrants hoping to reach Europe via the Balkan route, the BBC reports. European U... Russian Media Mogul Mikhail Lesin Died From Blunt Force Trauma mikenova shared this story from World TIME. A Russian media magnate and former aide to President Vladimir Putin who died in Washington last November was killed by blunt force trauma to the head, a medical examiner has ruled, contradict... Obama Blasts David Cameron for U.K.s Role in Libya mikenova shared this story from World TIME. President Barack Obama made biting remarks about U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, blaming him for Libyas descent into chaos after the ouster of long-serving autocrat Muammar Gaddafi ... Venezuelan Congress Gives Preliminary Approval to Recall Bill mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Venezuela's opposition-controlled Congress has given preliminary approval to a bill that would put the country on the road to a presidential recall referendum. During floor debate Thursda... 'You won't get rid of me!' Venezuela's Maduro tells foes mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro insisted on Thursday his opponents would fail in a new push to oust him this year and end 17 years of socialist rule in the OPE... Syrian army aims for eastward advance with Palmyra attack mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army backed by Russian air strikes is aiming to capture the historic city of Palmyra from Islamic State to open a road to the eastern province of Deir al-... U.S. Said Ready To Blame Iran For Cyberattack On Dam In New York mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. U.S. news media are reporting that the Obama administration will publicly blame Iranian hackers for a 2013 cyberattack against a small dam in New York state. Russia To Deliver First Antimissile Systems To Iran Later This Year mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russia says the first delivery of its S-300 missile-defense system to Iran will take place in August or September this year. Russian, Iranian Ministers To Discuss Oil-Output Freeze mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Alexander Novak will meet with Iranian Oil Minister oil minister Bijan Zanganeh on March 14 in Tehran to discuss how an oil-output oil o... Justin Trudeaus White House Dinner Has the Air of a Family Reunion mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. The state dinner for Canadas prime minister included celebrity guests born in his country, such as Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Oh, Michael J. Fox and Mike Myers. Civility favours Trump as he eyes victory mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. Only one winner from the latest US Republican debate VIDEO: How the BBC's world news channel evolved mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. As BBC World News marks its 25th anniversary, we look back at the way it has evolved. Obama trip to Cuba shows move away from focus on dissidents mikenova shared this story from AP Top News at 10:02 a.m. EST. HAVANA (AP) -- Dozens of uniformed and plainclothes police watch silently every Sunday morning as white-clad dissidents file into Mass at Santa Rita Church in a leafy Havana ... Director Meets with New Zealand Law Enforcement Leaders - Federal Bureau of Investigation (press release) (blog) mikenova shared this story from james b. comey - Google News. Director Meets with New Zealand Law Enforcement Leaders Federal Bureau of Investigation (press release) (blog) FBI Director James B . Comey met this week with our partners in ... Ben Carson endorses Donald Trump mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. March 11, 2016, 5:30 PM (IDT) Former presidential hopeful, the neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Friday endorsed Donald Trump for the Republican nomination call him very cerebral and &... Nationalist party set for gains as 3 German states vote mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) - A rising nationalist party is expected to ride unease about Chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policy to perform strongly in three Germa... Officership and the English Language mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. To speak of the profession of arms is to imply that military officers dont just have jobs, butlike doctors, lawyers, and members of the clergyare members of a community of lear... Trump: I Think There Are Two Donald Trumps mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. After Dr. Ben Carsons endorsement of him that included saying that there are two Donald Trumps, Trump confirmed that was indeed true during a press conference Friday in Pal... AIR TRANSPORTATION: Russia Does Damage Control mikenova shared this story from StrategyPage.com. None The Early Edition: March 11, 2016 mikenova shared this story from Just Security. Nadia O'Mara Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Heres todays news. SURVEILLANCE, PRIVACY and TECH... Why Black Lives Matter activists are siding with Apple in its fight with the FBI - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from james b. comey - Google News. Washington Post Why Black Lives Matter activists are siding with Apple in its fight with the FBI Washington Post Current FBI Director James B . Comey even keeps a copy of the ... UCSC Students Arrested for Drug Trafficking Charges | City on a Hill ... mikenova shared this story from international drug trafficking organizations - Google Blog Search. Six UC Santa Cruz students were arrested on March 4 for drug trafficking charges, including conspiracy and possession of a controlled subs... A huge leaked list of Islamic State fighters sounds too good to be true. Is it? mikenova shared this story from In Homeland Security. A huge list of Islamic State fighters, leaked from inside the organization's own internal security division, represents representing a treasure trove of detailed information. U.S. Attorney General defends FBI case against Apple on Stephen Colbert's show - TechCrunch mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. TechCrunch U.S. Attorney General defends FBI case against Apple on Stephen Colbert's show TechCrunch As the iPhone unlocking case becomes more heated, United States Attorney General Lore... Apple irony: Can you trust the FBI if conspiracy claims Hoover ordered the assassination of Kennedy? - BGR mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. BGR Apple irony: Can you trust the FBI if conspiracy claims Hoover ordered the assassination of Kennedy? BGR The Department of Justice on Thursday sent a strongly worded message to Apple... When FBI employees behave badly, the bureau lets their co-workers know - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Washington Post When FBI employees behave badly, the bureau lets their co-workers know Washington Post In a recent two-year stretch, 126 FBI agents or employees were disciplined for offe... Obama Pushes Back at Critics of His Foreign Policy, Diplomacy Moves mikenova shared this story from Defense News - Home. In a series of interviews with The Atlantic magazine released this week, US President Barack Obama says his reluctance to use military power shouldnt be seen as weakness. ... 'Shadow CIA' Using 'Boogeyman Scare Tactics' to Make Money - Sputnik International mikenova shared this story from cia - Google News. Sputnik International 'Shadow CIA ' Using 'Boogeyman Scare Tactics' to Make Money Sputnik International Stratfor's founder George Friedman has recently claimed that the world should get ... FBI wants to change iPhone's iOS: Fmr CIA chief - CNBC mikenova shared this story from cia - Google News. CNBC FBI wants to change iPhone's iOS: Fmr CIA chief CNBC The FBI's attempts to force Apple to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists is not just about accessing i... North Korea Lacks Skills to Miniaturize Nukes for Warheads - Ex-CIA ... mikenova shared this story from cia - Google Blog Search. Former CIA analyst and whistleblower John Kiriakou claims that North Korea still lacks the capability to miniaturize any of its nuclear weapons and mount them on intercontinental ... Putin aide who died mysteriously in Washington suffered blow to head mikenova shared this story from Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news. Russia complains of being kept in the dark after medical examiner finds Mikhail Lesin's death in a Washington hotel was due to blunt force injuries to... How Russia Saw the 'Red Line' Crisis - The Atlantic mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. The Atlantic How Russia Saw the 'Red Line' Crisis The Atlantic That is, Russia sees itself as a power on par with America, and simply doesn't group itself with a minor regional power ... Pro-Democracy Nonprofit Is Banned in Russia mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. The prosecutor generals office outlawed the National Democratic Institute, saying it posed a threat to the foundations of Russias constitutional order and national security. Zika outbreak: The more we learn, the worse things seem to get mikenova shared this story . The inside track on Washington politics. Be the first to know about new stories from PowerPost. Sign up to follow, and well e-mail you free updates as theyre published. Youll receive free... Iran Missile Launches Prompt Sanctions Push in US Congress - Voice of America mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Voice of America Iran Missile Launches Prompt Sanctions Push in US Congress Voice of America March 10, 2016 2:41 PM. CAPITOL HILL. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committ... US to blame Iran for cyber attack on small NY dam -CNN - Reuters Africa mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. US to blame Iran for cyber attack on small NY dam -CNN Reuters Africa WASHINGTON, March 10 (Reuters) - The Obama administration is planning to publicly blame Iranian hackers for a 2013... DOJ expected to charge 5 Iranians in 2013 hacking of New York dam - Fox News mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. Fox News DOJ expected to charge 5 Iranians in 2013 hacking of New York dam Fox News The Department of Justice is expected to announce charges against up to five Iranians believed... In Germany, a rising voice on the right mikenova shared this story from World. Elections Sunday could be a referendum on Angela Merkels open-door policy for asylum seekers. Small plane crashes in New York video mikenova shared this story from World news + Video | The Guardian. A small aeroplane plummets to earth after its engine cut out mid-flight on 5 March over Hauppauge, New York. The aircraft and its passengers were saved only by the emerge... Islamic State leaks reveals banned cleric Omar Bakri recruited British jihadists mikenova shared this story from World news. Omar Bakri Mohammad, Omar Bakri Mohammed, exiled from the UK since 2005, has been named as a sponsor by British jihadists attempting to join enter Isil Islamic State files leak: The 'good British Christian' who turned to jihad mikenova shared this story from World news. The full story of Fasil Towalde's short life can be told for the first time after his Isil recruitment forms and those of thousands of other fighters were leaked Islamic State files leak: Who is banned cleric Omar Bakri who recruited British jihadists? mikenova shared this story from World news. Tolerated by the British authorities until July 7 attacks, the "Tottenham Ayatollah" and his message has grown increasingly sinister. Now he is linked to recruiting for Isil Captured IS Operative Provided US With Chemical Weapons Information mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. U.S. defense officials say a key Islamic State operative captured by American forces last month has been transferred to Iraqi custody, after providing the U.S.-led coalition with valuable... Recovered Isis documents may not damage group: security expert explains video mikenova shared this story from World news + Video | The Guardian. Raffaello Pantucco, the director of the International Security Studies programme at the Roy United Services Institute (RUSI) discusses the significance of the leaked ISIS... Family 'Massacred' in Backyard Shooting Near Pittsburgh, Mother Says - ABC News mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. New York Post Family 'Massacred' in Backyard Shooting Near Pittsburgh, Mother Says ABC News A grieving Pennsylvania mother is speaking out about the murders of her three children... Justice Department: Locked iPhone May Have Evidence of San Bernardino Attack - NBC4 Washington mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. NBC4 Washington Justice Department: Locked iPhone May Have Evidence of San Bernardino Attack NBC4 Washington FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tue... Brazil prosecutors seek Lula's arrest for money laundering mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. SAO PAULO (Reuters) - State prosecutors in Brazil are seeking the arrest of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on charges of money laundering and identity fraud for concealing ... Former Putin Aide, Found in Washington, Died From Blows to Head mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. The medical examiners report, which found that Mikhail Y. Lesin had died of blunt force injuries, conflicted with Russian news reports that Mr. Lesin had died of a heart attack. Netanyahu's Office Ties Canceled Obama Meeting to Unresolved U.S.-Israel Aid mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said Thursday that he canceled a trip to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington later this month partly because of unres... Brazil prosecutors 'seek Lula arrest' mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. Brazilian prosecutors are reported to be calling for the arrest of ex-President Lula da Silva over a corruption investigation. Ex-Putin Aide Died in D.C. Hotel After Blunt Force Injuries - Daily Beast mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Daily Beast Ex-Putin Aide Died in D.C. Hotel After Blunt Force Injuries Daily Beast One of the founders of Kremlin-backed RT, Mikhail Lesin's cause of death had been a mystery for mont... California lawmakers vote to raise smoking, vaping age to 21 - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. Washington Post California lawmakers vote to raise smoking, vaping age to 21 Washington Post SACRAMENTO, Calif. California lawmakers voted Thursday to raise the legal age for p... Key powers mulling possibility of federal division of Syria mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Major powers close to U.N.-brokered peace talks on Syria are discussing the possibility of a federal division of the war-torn country that would maintain its... Electricity cut off for Puerto Rico hospital that owes $4M mikenova shared this story from World. Puerto Ricos power company has cut off electricity to a hospital over nearly $4 million in unpaid bills, part of a stepped-up effort by the heavily indebted agency to collect money amid the island... Former Russian press minister died in U.S. of blunt force injuries mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Russian Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, who was found dead in a Washington hotel room last year, died of blunt force injuries to the head, authorities said ... Former Putin Aide Died of Blunt Force in Washington mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. A former top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin died of blunt force injuries of the head in a Washington D.C. hotel four months ago, according to the office of the Chief Med... Ex-aide to Putin died of blunt force trauma at D.C. hotel, medical examiner says mikenova shared this story from World. Police are still investigating the circumstances of Mikhail Lesins death in November. CDC Chief: Puerto Rico Facing 'Hundreds of Thousands' of Zika Cases mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The top U.S. disease prevention official said Thursday that there could be "hundreds of thousands" of Zika cases in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico in the coming months if precautions a... FBI infiltrated Russian spy ring with hidden recorders, prosecutors say - The Guardian mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. The Guardian FBI infiltrated Russian spy ring with hidden recorders, prosecutors say The Guardian The FBI eavesdropped on meetings involving Russian intelligence personnel in New York Ci... Savage echoes Enquirer: Scalia killed by CIA prostitute - TRUNEWS mikenova shared this story from cia - Google News. TRUNEWS Savage echoes Enquirer: Scalia killed by CIA prostitute TRUNEWS (TRUNEWS) Michael Savage, the talk radio host of The Savage Nation said Monday that there may be validity behind T... FBI Says Threat From 'Ransomware' Is Expected to Grow - Wall Street Journal mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. FBI Says Threat From 'Ransomware' Is Expected to Grow Wall Street Journal Chris Stangl, a section chief at the FBI's Cyber Division, described the increasing urgency and scope of the cha... Viola Beach: Indie band's driver 'plunged off bridge intentionally', say Swedish police mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. 'We can't find any secondary explanation,' officer says mikenova shared this story from SvobodaRadio's YouTube Videos. From: SvobodaRadio Duration: 00:56 "", 2- , , ... Antibiotics May Get New Life Against Lethal Bacteria mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Antibiotics that have become ineffective against a lethal bacterial infection may get new life, thanks to the discovery of compounds that weaken the pathogen. Staphylococcus aureus has be... Obama, Seen as Reluctant Warrior, Addresses Limits of US Power mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. With less than a year left in his White House tenure, U.S. President Barack Obama says he has reached an overriding conclusion that the United States can be a force for good in world affa... Medical Examiner Says Ex-Kremlin Press Minister Died Of 'Blunt Force' To Head mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. City officials in Washington D.C. say they have determined that Russia's former Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, a longtime close ally of Vladimir Putin who was found dead i... Free Range Data Reveals All mikenova shared this story from StrategyPage.com. March 10, 2016: National intelligence services (like the CIA and MI6) continue to find themselves relying more and more on civilian sources for the best data and analysis. A recent exampl... Russian Activists, Western Journalists Attacked Trying To Enter Chechnya mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. A Russian rights group says two Western journalists and two rights activists were hospitalized after masked men with knives and clubs attacked them as the group tried to ... Special Reports mikenova shared this story from The Interpreter. Special Reports Nadiya Savchenko Victim of a Modern Show Trial A Ukrainian prisoner of war is now on the fifth day of a dry hunger strike, accepting neither food nor water, and nearing t... Iraqi Kurds Say IS Militants Shelled Village With 'Poisonous Substances' mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Iraqi Kurdish officials have accused Islamic State militants of using poisonous substances in the shelling of a village in northern Iraq. How Japan and Russia Cooperate in the Arctic | The Diplomat - The Diplomat mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. The Diplomat How Japan and Russia Cooperate in the Arctic | The Diplomat The Diplomat Japanese policymakers expressed diplomatic interest in the Arctic a region rapidly being transf... Putin Signs Law Outlawing Unregistered 'Road Rallies,' Tent Cities mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that classifies motorcades and tent cities as forms of protest that must be registered and approved by authorities at le... mikenova shared this story from golosamerikius's YouTube Videos. From: golosamerikius Duration: 02:46 , ... Russian hostility 'partly caused by west', claims former US defence ... - The Guardian mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. The Guardian Russian hostility 'partly caused by west', claims former US defence ... The Guardian William Perry says US contempt toward Russia as 'third-rate power' after end of Cold ... Two Faces of Russias Foreign Policy mikenova shared this story from Latest From the Wilson Center. To receive an email when a new post becomes available, please subscribe here. Originally many in the West tended to view Russias Syrian adventure as yet another one of Mos... Balkan Nations Shut Down March of Migrants mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. Since Tuesday, countries in southeastern Europe have moved to close the migrant trail, even as the European Union continues talks with Turkey. The U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Newsletter: December 2015 - February 2016 - Harvard mikenova shared this story from Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - Latest Publications. Newsletter March 9, 2016 Author: Simon Saradzhyan , Director, Russia Matters Project; Assistant Director, U.S.-Russia Initiative t... The U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Newsletter: December 2015 - February 2016 mikenova shared this story from Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - US-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism. March 9, 2016 Members of the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism weigh in on the Nuc... Russia may be running out of oil RT Business mikenova shared this story from RT - Daily news. Oil production in Russia will inevitably decline by 2035 according to an Energy Ministry report seen by the Vedomosti business daily. The different scenarios predict an output drop from 1.... - mikenova shared this story from Google. , ... - .RU mikenova shared this story from Google. .Ru .RU - , ... : Stratfor - mikenova shared this story from Google. : Stratfor Stratfor ... - mikenova shared this story from Google. , " ... US Holds Islamic State Agent Tied to Chemical Weapons mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. U.S. defense officials say an Islamic State operative captured by American special-operations forces is a key figure in the militant group's chemical-weapons program in Iraq, where new ga... NATO Secretary General Says Russia Trying to Split Alliance mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia has made "numerous attempts" to intimidate its neighbors and split NATO, the RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday. Russian-Iranian S-300 Missile-Deal Reportedly Delayed mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. Russian officials conceded some problems with supplying S-300 missiles to Iran but maintained the deal was still in place, the Kommersant newspaper reported Wednesday. At Least Three Russians Injured in Tel Aviv Terrorist Attack mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. At least three Russian citizens were wounded in a terrorist attack in Israel on Tuesday evening, as a Palestinian man went on a stabbing rampage near Tel Aviv's Jaffa Port, RI... Building a New Russia Means Rooting Out Stalins Destructive Soviet Legacy mikenova shared this story from The Interpreter. The following is an excerpt from Paula Chertoks East-West Blog : Historian Andrei Zubov presents a powerful lecture on the roots of the Soviet mentality and the resurgence of Stalin so ja... Russia warns North Korea over threats of nuclear strike mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. One of Pyongyangs few remaining allies says country is in danger of creating legal grounds for international military intervention. NK News reports Russia has warned North Korea tha... Is Putin dragging the west into the next cold war? mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Nato has accused Russia of undermining stability in Europe while the prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has warned of a new cold war. At a Guardian Live event, an expert panel discussed ... Russian hostility 'partly caused by west', claims former US defence head mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. William Perry says US contempt toward Russia as third-rate power after end of Cold War played a big role The current level of hostility in US-Russian relations was caused in part b... Why Ukraine needs Russia more than ever - The Guardian mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. The Guardian Why Ukraine needs Russia more than ever The Guardian This sums up the core problem facing the Ukrainian economy. It is not corruption, a serious issue about which little ... What you need to know about the Octagon Art Festival on Sunday in Ames news Ministry of Labour and Employment Launches the Start Your Business Page on NCS Portal New Delhi, Sat, 12 Mar 2016 NI Wire Following the MoU signed with Uber in February 2016, the Ministry of Labour and Employment on Friday, 11 March 2016, announced the official launch of the Start Your Own business page on the National Career Services Portal. Gracing his presence at the event, Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Shri Shankar Agarwal, said Participation from the industry is essential to create a wide range of entrepreneurial opportunities for the unemployed youth of the country. This initiative aims to make it more convenient for an individual to start his own business. We welcome companies like Uber, who are revolutionizing the way traditional employment works, by offering flexible and high earning opportunities on its platform. We look forward to make this a vibrant platform for entrepreneurs to share their success stories and motivate others in joining the entrepreneurial endeavours The National Career Services Portal (www.ncs.gov.in) was dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister last year, with the vision to provide a nationwide platform that wouldfacilitate the jobseekers and employers to come together on this platform through dynamic, efficient and responsive job matching. Towards the aim of encouraging a nation of job creators in addition to job seekers, the newly launched section on NCS provides helpful material and links for budding entrepreneurs. Uber was introduced asoneof the first entrepreneurship partnerson the page since it has already presented over 250,000 entrepreneurial opportunities for aspiring cab drivers in India. Youth in the country can now log onto the NCS portal and sign up to become a driver partner on the Uber platform. Uber will also facilitate such partners in getting financial loans to purchase vehicles and start their business. The announcement was made at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi on 11 March, in presence of Shri Pravin Srivastava DDG (Employment) from the Ministry, Shri.Thuan Pham, Chief Technology Officer, Uber Technologies and representatives from over 50 India based startups. This was followed by a live mentorship session for the startups on tackling the challenges faced by new entrepreneurs in building and launching product and organizing its technical workforce. Shri. Thuan Pham said, We are excited by the progressive move of the Ministry to embrace such collaborations to boost Indias economy and offer a variety of new work and flexible opportunities that go beyond traditional employment. Source: PIB PM addresses inaugural ceremony of World Culture Festival New Delhi, Sat, 12 Mar 2016 NI Wire The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today addressed the inaugural ceremony of the World Culture Festival in New Delhi. The festival has been organized by the Art of Living Foundation, to commemorate 35 years of the organization's service to mankind. Welcoming people from across the world who have gathered in Delhi for the World Culture Festival, the Prime Minister complimented Sri Sri Ravi Shankar for the great work being done by the Art of Living Foundation in over 150 countries. Shri Narendra Modi recalled a reception organized by the Art of Living Foundation in Mongolia, and said that India had a lot to contribute to the world, but in order to be able to do so, it was first necessary to appreciate the uniqueness and the breadth of Indian culture. He said that through the Art of Living, the world has been able to appreciate India. Speaking at length about "the art of living," the Prime Minister said that the determination to achieve one's goal, in the face of adversity, required, 'the art of living.' The Prime Minister's address was preceded by addresses from a large number of dignitaries from around the world, and a cultural programme featuring a large number of participants. Source: PIB Share This week in the Next Generation Communications Community had something for all of our readers. Topics ranged from better indoor wireless coverage to helping cable MSO field service technicians rollout DOCSIS 3.1 more efficiently to our second look at flexible service chaining. News Topping the news item list was the announcement that Tele2 Netherlands will be using community host Nokias (News - Alert) line of LTE small cells for better indoor coverage. As frequent visitors to the community know, interest by mobile service providers in providing better user experiences of their services indoors, where most conversations originate and terminate, has become a high priority. Given all of the challenges associated with data breaches, particularly in a BYOD world, the revelation that NTT (News - Alert) DOCOMO has extended the deployment of the FIDO Alliance's FIDO Certified strong authentication to customers with Touch ID-equipped Apple (News - Alert) iPhones and other iOS devices is more than just a sign of the times. In fact, it is a move likely to be replicated by other service providers as passwords become increasingly problematic for access services. While much industry attention tends to be focused on telecom fixed and mobile service providers, the fact of the matter is that cable operators, the other fixed network provider, are on the move providing next generation communications in order to remain strong competitors offering broadband services. DOCSIS 3.1 is their vehicle of choice, and to facilitate cable companies being fast-to-market with broadband services, Viavi has introduced what is being called the industry's first fully-compliant DOCSIS 3.1 installation and service solution. And, the final piece of news of note this week was the announcement by CellTrust (News - Alert) of the launch of its Prime Message solution. It is aimed at helping marketers better reach to mobile users by leveraging SMS which remains a proven tool for gaining customer attention. Features In the features this week, again the diversity of next generation solutions was on display. Topics addressed include: As part of the continuing look at the value of overlay networks that has been a feature for the past few weeks, how operators can achieve full visibility of such networks was the focus. My colleague TMC Executive Editor, Paula Bernier (News - Alert), concluded her two-part series on the activities and network functions that make flexible chaining possible. This time the focus is on how to architect such an environment. Back to things relating to small cells, how to best connect them is the topic of the posting, Three Keys for Connecting Small Cells to Wider Networks which delves into how to plan and effectively connect small cells to the WAN. The least item is a look into the future as the good news is that two recent RAN Virtualization tests, on what is seen as the cornerstone of 5G networks, have been successful. Weekend Reading This is our weekly reminder to check out the community home page for links to constantly up-dated news, whitepapers, videos, podcasts and case studies. This includes recommendations on new additions from TechZine, including more on indoor small cell placement: Carrier-grade virtualized routers: Are we there? Field insights: Optimal indoor cell placement Finally, dont overlook links to outstanding resources such as the Digital Ideas section which contains a series of informative podcasts, along with links to eBooks and blogs. China announced a space telescope program, which will advance China into capabilities only previously held by programs like the U.S. Hubble space telescope. The Chinese space telescope would have a 2+meter diameter lens with a field of view 300 times that of the Hubble Space telescope, while maintaining the same level of image resolution. With such a wide field of view, the space telescope could survey 40 percent of the cosmos in ten years. Zhou Jianping, the head of Chinas manned space program, noted that such a wide field-of-view would create a higher fidelity image to search for dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets. Even more notable than the capabilities, however, may be the plan for where to locate the telescope. Zhang said that the Chinese space telescope would orbit close to a Chinese space station, likely the Tiangong 3, so that Chinese taikonauts would quickly service any problems, compared to the 3.5 year wait for NASA to correct the Hubble Telescopes mirror problems. The Tiangong 3s two 15-meter-long robotic arms would be very helpful in servicing the space telescope. Using a space station as a permanent support base for a satellite has not yet been tried before; neither Skylab, Mir, nor the ISS had any large satellites close by. To outfit the Tiangong 3 for such a mission, China would need to stockpile supplies of tools and spares to provide for prompt servicing of a space telescope, though new technology such as monitoring nanosatellites could make telescope repairs easier. Keyhole spy satellites and the Hubble Space telescope were built of common technology and similar designs. China space telescope design Keyhole 11 class spy satellite Keyhole-class (KH) reconnaissance satellites have been orbiting the Earth for more than 30 years. They are typically used to take overhead photos for military missions. A KH-12 is a $1 billion satellite that resembles the Hubble Space Telescope, except it is looking at our planet. They are supplemented by the 15-ton Lacrosse-class radar-imaging satellites. A Keyhole satellite as a gigantic orbiting digital camera with an incredibly huge lens on it. Optical image reconnaissance satellites use a charge coupled device (CCD) to gather images that make up a digital photograph for transmission back to Earth from an altitude of about 200 miles. In 2014, the United States spy satellite agency is giving NASA two spare space telescopes free of charge, each potentially more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope. The two spy satellite telescopes were originally built to fly space-based surveillance missions for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), but will be repurposed by NASA for astronomical research instead. Their donation to NASA was revealed in a surprise announcement. Both NRO space telescopes have a main mirror nearly 8 feet wide (2.4 meters), rivaling the Hubble Space Telescope, and also carry a secondary mirror to enhance image sharpness, according to press reports. Chinas planned space station Now that Android N is in the hands of developers and anyone else looking to flash the early Android N build on their Nexus devices, some testers have looked at the various new features that Android N will offer. The Android Beta Program has now finally opened its doors to developers, allowing them for an easy way to grab the Android N Developer Preview. I suspect it'll still be limited to the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Nexus 9 and Pixel C, however, so make sure you have one of those devices if you want in. Rather than making it available at Google I/O in mid-May, Google seems eager to get developers' feedback before the software is released to consumers later this year. All we know is that it is now going by the codename N. We also know Android N is expected to be unveiled at Google I/O opening on 18 May 2016. Using the RemoteInput API enables users to reply to incoming message notifications quickly and conveniently, without leaving the notification shade. Builder.setGroup() method to group notifications from the same app together - for example individual messages from a messaging app. Google hasn't specified exactly how this will work just yet, but the interface looks much like Microsoft's split-screen feature, first introduced in Windows 8.1. An early referred to as Android N, premiered on Thursday for program developers to examine. With this PiP mode, Android TV users can watch a video in a window pinned to one corner of the screen while using some other app. That said, it's a bit buggy and we've been warned it may not work with the Play Store, Twitter, and others, but did. In fact, a year ago Android M debuted at the end of May and wasn't released until October. Along with this, Android N also expands the range of languages available to users. Iran tests more ballistic missiles that can reach Israel A protestor holds a placard during a demonstration and rally opposing the nuclear deal with Iran in Times Square, July 22, 2015. Iran will not turn into Yemen, Iraq or Syria", Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh told state TV on late Wednesday. However, Google put paid to the rising optimism by calling the merger of Android OS with Chrome OS a figment of fantasy. Google normally starts talking about the next Android release at its Google IO developer show; this year's rendition happens in late May. So fast actually, that most Galaxy S6 or Note 5 users in the USA don't even have Android 6.0 Marshmallow yet, while Nexus devices can already try the new Android N release starting today. Ex-Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson backs Donald Trump in presidential race Carson's limited grasp of the issues was evident time and again during his campaign for president. Trump first considered the "two Trumps" theory Carson offered and said, "I probably do agree. As you might have guessed already, Android N's Dark Theme does exactly what its name suggests. The yet-to-be-named Android update, codenamed "Android N", features a split-screen mode, improved notifications and better battery life. One-year spaceman sees mission as 'steppingstone' to Mars He's been in regular contact with curious Earthlings via social media, frequently tweeting out photos that show his view. On Tuesday, he is to turn over command of the International Space Station to a fellow NASA astronaut, Timothy L. Android N: What is the developer preview? In fact, Google says install the preview on secondary devices only, as it is still early days and rather buggy. If you want to run two apps at the same time on your smartphone, or have a Nexus tablet (or the Pixel C) and want to do more with your device, Android N is for you. Google's Hiroshi Lockheimer says that the final Android N release will be delivered to device makers this summer, but we'll see updates to this Developer Preview between now and then. A developer preview is a "work in progress" build that is released to app developers prior to a consumer rollout of the final software. Most Android fans were not expecting to catch a glimpse of the next version of Google's mobile operating system until Google I/O in May, resorting to mockups of Android N to get a feel on what it would look like. Devices that you opt into the program will receive an over-the-air (OTA) update to the latest beta version of Android N. The updates that you'll receive as a part of this program are unstable pre-release versions, and may contain errors and defects that affect your device. Arizona vs. OR live stream Boucher said, "At the end, we knew if we stayed together and all go to the rebound , we had a chance to win this game". With the loss, the Buffaloes have several days to regroup before learning their NCAA Tournament fate on Sunday. Google's quick-reply feature would also become available in Android N, allowing customers to send replies to messages straight from the notification shade without entering the app. Google's Hangouts now allows customers to reply from an Android notification, but that still requires a pop-up window. Apps can take up a portion of one side of the screen, and the app's interface will adapt based on how much screen real estate it's given. Just keep in mind that these builds are meant for developers to test their apps on and not for use as daily drivers, so don't be surprised if you run into some wonkiness while using the Android N Developer Preview. Android N now supports number-blocking in the platform and provides a framework API to let service providers maintain a blocked-number list. He also noted that Android N release this year is a little different from previous versions that don't have developers early preview and only happen during the annual developer's conference in May. There's also a Direct Boot feature in Android N and this mode is on when the device is on, but the user has not unlocked it. It has a battery saving capability with the doze option when the screen turns off. Once it's done, just follow the on-screen prompts and you'll be running Android N in no time. Gulf states declare Hezbollah terrorist group The growing rifts between Saudi Arabia and Iran have rattled Lebanon, where both nations have competing influence. Nasrallah also stepped up criticism of Saudi Arabia, accusing it of directing vehicle bombings in Lebanon. Google's upcoming Android 6.1 or 7.0 "N" update (we're guessing it will be called Nutella) will be released sometime this summer. If you're an Android user, you probably know the official store, Google Play Store, comes preinstalled on all Android devices and operating systems. Further updates to the Android N Preview will also not be automatically received, so further system image downloads and installations will be required. Google names its Android versions after sweet treats. Paying tribute to his former bandmate on Facebook tonight (11 March), Carl Palmer wrote: "I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my good friend and brother-in-music, Keith Emerson". Keith Emerson, the flamboyant, English prog-rock pioneer who rose to fame as the keyboardist for supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer in the '70s, died in Santa Monica, Calif. on Thursday at age 71. In addition to his career with Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Emerson had a lengthy solo career that encompassed both albums and film scores, notably for the films Inferno (1980) and Nighthawks (1981). Conor McGregor releases statement after UFC 196 loss McGregor continued. "That's the sign of a loser". "I think it's a loser's mentality to get happy with somebody losing". But it will take much, much more than one unusual loss before McGregor finds himself at a loss for words. Emerson co-founded Emerson, Lake & Palmer, which played its first high-profile show at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. Keith Emerson was a master of the keyboards. The early-generation analog synthesizers, named after their creator, USA engineer Robert Moog, had gradually been finding their way into popular music, most notably appearing on The Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road. Morena Baccarin, Ben McKenzie welcome baby girl The pair's reps confirmed to USA Today that they had welcomed a daughter on March 2. All are happy and healthy and appreciate the well-wishes. The band recorded nine studio albums, including 1973's "Brain Salad Surgery". Tarkus, released in 1971, featured an opening track lasting more than 20 minutes, inspired by the fictional Tarkus character - a half-tank, half-armadillo creature that would appear on stage at gigs. "A lot of musicians, particularly in orchestras, have come up to me and said, "Well, we wouldn't have started playing unless we heard your version of 'Pictures at an Exhibition" first, and that's when I started playing an instrument", Emerson said. He had a tour of Japan scheduled for next month. The cause of death is not yet known. The two joined forces in 1970, becoming Emerson, Lake & Palmer after recruiting Palmer, a veteran of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster. "This is a fairly common statement made to me, you know?" Not Found The requested URL was not found on this server. Apache Server Port 80 "This is the test of choice to detect the Zika virus in blood within the first seven days after symptoms appear", said Dr. Larry Seigler, chief of HHD's Bureau of Laboratories. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that the mosquito that spreads the Zika virus is rare above 6,500 feet (2,000 meters). Zika is not known to be circulating in the mosquito population in Kentucky - or any other part of the United States. Pregnant women are considered to be at greatest risk from the virus because of a strongly suspected link between an outbreak of Zika in Brazil and a concurrent spike in microcephaly. According to the CDC, the virus also has been reported in at least 31 other states. There is no vaccine to prevent infection and no specific antiviral treatment for Zika. 6 new Zika cases in Florida brings total to 58 The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days to a week after being bitten by an infected mosquito. The confirmed case involved a man from Clay County, who traveled to Haiti, and has since recovered from the virus. The list of neurological disorders potentially associated with the Zika virus continues to grow, health officials reported Wednesday. A four year old boy from Greater Portmore in St Catherine, has been confirmed as the country's only case of the Zika Virus. Two types of Aedes mosquitoes carry the virus, and one is native to West Virginia - increasing the risk that a native mosquito could contract the disease and spread it, Gupta said. Health officials on campus said symptoms are often mild, and can include headaches, rashes and fevers. [And] we do not know if infected men who never develop symptoms can transmit Zika virus through sex. Use insect repellents containing an EPA-registered active ingredient on skin and clothing, including DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus, para-menthane-diol or IS 3535. If travel is unavoidable they should take extra precautions to prevent mosquito bites. Carson: There are 'two Donald Trumps;' Twitter says one is enough Rubio and Kasich - on the likelihood of the GOP race coming down to a contested Republican convention this summer. He said he had "buried the hatchet" with the real estate magnate over their scathing campaign clashes. The confirmed case involved a man from Clay County, who traveled to Haiti, and has since recovered from the virus. The individual is an adult from southwest Kansas and has travel history to a country with local Zika virus transmission. "For a healthy person the potential of getting sick isn't very high", she said. Just last month, Jamaica was placed on travel advisory by Canada due to the Zika virus. The The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016, announced new guidance for doctors whose pregnant patients may have traveled to regions with a tropical illness linked to birth defects. Comments Policy Comments that are excessively crude, obscene or profane - especially when they consist of nothing more than gratuitous insults or aspersions upon the character of authors or other commenters - will be vigorously discouraged. Therefore, if you find your comment has been deleted, you will know why. Confira o preco do seguro para o Chevrolet Onix Saiba quando voce gastaria com o seguro do carro mais vendido do Brasil By William Philpott By William Philpott DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) - Secret Service officers rushed on stage to protect U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump during a disturbance at a rally on Saturday, a day after rowdy protests shut down his event in Chicago. Trump briefly ducked at the podium and four Secret Service members scrambled to surround him after a man charged the stage at Dayton International Airport in Ohio. Officers then grabbed the man, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, before he was able to reach the stage and hauled him away. "I was ready. I don't know if I would have done well but I would have been out there fighting, folks," Trump told a rally later in the day. He said the man "was looking to do harm." The incident further increased tension after Trump's Chicago rally was scrapped amid chaotic scenes on Friday. Trump's Republican rivals hurled scorn at the New York billionaire, saying he helped create the nervous atmosphere that is now sweeping the race for the White House with his fiery rhetoric. Trump blamed supporters of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders for the incidents in Chicago, where scuffles broke out between protesters and backers of the real estate magnate. He called the U.S. senator from Vermont "our communist friend." The scenes in Chicago followed a series of recent incidents of violence at Trump rallies, in which protesters and journalists have been punched, tackled and hustled out of venues, raising concerns about degrading security leading into the Nov. 8 election. "All of a sudden a planned attack just came out of nowhere," Trump said in Dayton, describing the events in Chicago. He called the protest leaders there "professional people". Sanders, a U.S. Senator from Vermont, hit back. "As is the case virtually every day, Donald Trump is showing the American people that he is a pathological liar. Obviously, while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trump's rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests." President Barack Obama told a fundraising event in Dallas that political leaders "should be trying to bring us together and not turning us against one another." Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton drew criticism for releasing an initial statement that did not mention Trump by name and tied violent campaign events to a shooting in a South Carolina black church last year that left 9 people dead. While campaigning in St. Louis, Missouri, on Saturday, Clinton criticized Trump directly for "ugly, divisive rhetoric" that encourages aggression and violence. CRUCIAL PRIMARIES The months-long Republican race may be coming to a head at nominating contests on Tuesday where Trump is seeking victories that might give him an almost insurmountable lead for the nomination. Primaries in Florida and Ohio will be particularly important since they are winner-take-all states, where all Republican delegates are given to the winner of the popular vote instead of being awarded proportionally. It will be a make-or-break day for Republican candidates John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who both must win their home states to forge a credible path forward. Trump has drawn fervent support as well as criticism for his calls to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. His rallies often attract small groups of protesters, but Friday's was the first at which there may have been as many protesters as supporters. At an event in Kansas City on Saturday, Trump urged police to arrest people who disrupt his events. "They'll have to explain to Mom and Dad why they have a police record and why they can't get a job. And you know what? I'm going to start pressing charges against all these people and then we won't have a problem," he said to cheers. Outside the rally, police broke up confrontations between Trump supporters and protesters who shouted, "Shut it down!" Police on horseback and riot gear briefly moved into a crowd of protesters and officers used what appeared to be pepper spray against demonstrators for a few seconds. Rubio, who according to the New York Times slightly edged out Kasich on Saturday to win the Washington D.C. primary with 37 percent of the vote, bemoaned the state of the presidential race during an event in Florida, saying it had "become reality television." "Last night in Chicago, we saw images that make America look like a Third World country," Rubio said, reminding supporters the stakes on Tuesday are high. Kasich told journalists before a campaign event in Cincinnati, Ohio, that Trump had created a "toxic environment." Republican candidate U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called the Chicago incidents "sad." Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer said that the tension on display at Trump's events are a proxy for what is going on in the electorate writ large. "People have strong reactions to Donald Trump," Geer said. "They are playing out in the voting booth and they are also playing out at these events." Geer said the Chicago cancellation would likely embolden Trump's supporters - an idea floated by Trump in several television interviews. Clinton picked up four delegates in the Northern Mariana Islands' Democratic primary on Saturday, to Sanders' two. On the Republican side, Cruz won around two-thirds of the votes in Wyoming's Republican nominating contest but because of the state's unusual rules it is not clear how many Wyoming delegates will go his way at the Republican Convention in July. (Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Idrees Ali and Amanda Becker in Washington.; Editing by Alistair Bell and Sandra Maler) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. By Paul Taylor By Paul Taylor BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's emerging migration policy is looking increasingly like Donald Trump without the hair. Except that, unlike the Republican presidential frontrunner, who wants to make Mexico pay for a wall to keep migrants out of the United States, the Europeans are willing to pay their neighbor Turkey to do the job for them. Seven months and a million migrants after Chancellor Angela Merkel declared a "welcome culture" for Syrian refugees in Germany, the European Union is rushing to erect "No vacancy" signs along its internal and external borders. Under fierce political pressure in her own conservative camp and from an insurgent right-wing populist party, the Alliance for Germany (AfD), Merkel's mantra of "We can do this" is morphing into "The Turks can do this for us". In a surprise overnight deal she negotiated with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last week, Ankara offered to take back all migrants, including Syrian refugees, who cross from its shores into Europe from now on or are intercepted off its coast. Having thus sealed its most porous border to irregular migrants, the EU would admit a limited number of carefully vetted Syrian refugees directly from Turkey - one for each Syrian asylum seeker Ankara took back from Greek Aegean islands. The lucky few would be chosen with the help of the U.N. refugee agency from among those who had waited patiently in camps in Syria's neighbors, not those who had paid smugglers thousands of euros for a risky sea crossing. They would be sent to those EU countries that agreed last year to take in a quota, although some states are resisting that. Stifling doubts about the legality of such a blanket return policy, discomfort at outsourcing it to a partner many of them see as worryingly authoritarian, and irritation at the price Turkey is demanding, stunned EU leaders gave their provisional assent. DESPERATION European public opinion is so petrified by images of tens of thousands of bedraggled migrants trekking across muddy fields and highways towards western and northern Europe - and populists have made such capital out of those fears - that governments are desperate to halt the flow. Another summit in Brussels this week is due to conclude the Faustian bargain, granting Turkey 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion)in aid to keep refugees on its soil, an accelerated path to visa-free travel for Turks and faster EU membership talks in return for its agreement to act as Europe's gatekeeper. European Council President Donald Tusk says regaining control of Europe's external borders is a condition for gaining public acceptance to take in refugees. In practice, it looks more like a way of keeping them out, if it can be implemented. Human rights groups and volunteers who work with refugees are outraged to see Europe slamming shut its open door for victims of war and persecution. EU lawyers are working overtime to try to make it legal. The Geneva Convention on refugees requires signatories to examine individually each claim for protection submitted by an asylum seeker on their soil. The German-Turkish deal would get around that provision by declaring Turkey a "safe" third country to which irregular migrants could be returned under a bilateral Greek-Turkish readmission agreement. The United Nations' top human rights official has said that could entail illegal "collective and arbitrary expulsions". Apart from the moral issues raised by this dodge, there are several legal problems. Turkey restricts its application of the Geneva Convention to refugees from Europe. People fleeing war or persecution in the Middle East and Asia will not be covered unless Ankara amends its laws. Turkish officials say they will ensure Turkey complies with international law to fulfill its part of the potential EU deal. Even so, lawyers say asylum seekers who reach Greece have a right to appeal against being sent back to Turkey if they fear for their personal safety there. A Greek court would have to hear each appeal before a person could be removed. There is no appropriate court on the Greek islands, and Greek justice is notoriously slow. EMBARRASSMENT At the same time, the rush to declare Turkey "safe" could hardly have come at a more embarrassing time for the EU. President Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up a military crackdown on Kurdish militants, the government has seized Turkey's best-selling newspaper, critical journalists face prosecution and jail, and businessmen and public officials close to a dissident Muslim cleric have been purged. Unlike Trump, most EU leaders do not declare they want to prevent more Muslims settling in their country, with the exception of Hungary's Viktor Orban and Slovakia's Robert Fico, who have stressed preserving their countries' Christian identity. However, anti-immigration campaigners like Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands openly cite Islam as a reason for rejecting refugees, and they are increasingly setting the agenda for mainstream politicians. They oppose visa-free travel for Turks in Europe for the same reason. France, which has a tradition of political asylum and took in tens of thousands of Vietnamese "boat people" in the 1970s, is limiting its intake of Syrian refugees now, citing security concerns following last year's Islamist attacks in Paris. Like other west European countries, France has struggled to integrate second and third generation young people of Muslim or north African origin. The place of Islam in public life is fiercely contested in these secular societies, and resentments from Algeria's war of independence still simmer. European politicians may be aghast at the rhetoric of Trump, who has said he wants a database to register and track Muslims in the United States and would bar any Muslim entering the country until Congress could act. But if the pact with Turkey goes through as conceived, the EU will be retreating into a "fortress Europe" policy for fear of its own Trumps. ($1 = 0.8968 euros) (Writing by Paul Taylor) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. Secret Service agents rushed to protect Donald Trump after a protester at his Saturday rally in Dayton, Ohio tried to jump on stage behind the candidate. In footage of the incident, Trump is shown recoiling in shock as something happens behind him and agents quickly appear to protect him. The crowd then quickly responds by chanting Trumps name and U.S.A. before the candidate tried to shrug it off and resume his speech, insisting that while he was ready for the protester, it was better to let the authorities take care of it. A campaign spokesperson told NBC News that the man attempted to breach the secure buffer and was removed rapidly and professionally. A 32-year-old suspect named Thomas Dimassimo was subsequently arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and inducing a panic. I've never seen Trump look so scared. https://t.co/Qp1fnRNjvs Alexandra Rosenmann (@alexpreditor) March 12, 2016 The incident comes less than a day after Trump, citing safety concerns, postponed a campaign event at an arena in Chicago after thousands of protesters arrived to disrupt the rally. Trump escalated his rhetoric about that event while speaking in Dayton, saying that if he hadnt cancelled the rally, You would have had a problem like you havent seen in a long time, and calling the protests a planned attack by people carrying signs printed by people that were professional people very professionally done. A disgrace, if you want to know the truth. He added that, We want to get along with everybody. But when they have organized, professionally staged wiseguys, weve got to fight back. An anti-Trump protester inside the arena in Chicago on Friday night. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images Citing safety concerns, Donald Trump postponed a rally in Chicago on Friday night as a tense standoff played out between his supporters and thousands of anti-Trump protesters who had arrived both inside and outside the Chicago Pavilion at University of Illinois in an attempt to disrupt the event. Multiple clashes ensued, and according to the Associated Press, there were ultimately several isolated physical confrontations among the crowd resulting in a total of five arrests over the course of the night. Though the candidate never arrived at the arena himself, an announcement was made a half hour after he was scheduled to take the stage saying that Mr. Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonights rally will be postponed to another date. According to the Washington Post, Chicago Police later told reporters that they had no role, we were not consulted or provided an opinion about the events cancellation. After the announcement was made, a few brief scuffles broke out inside the arena between protesters and Trump supporters, footage of which has since been heavily circulated both on television and online: The clashes and postponement are the latest (and most dramatic) incident amid an intensifying trend of violence at the Republican front-runners rallies over the past few weeks, a trend that Trumps rivals and critics link to the candidates divisive rhetoric and often explicit calls for violence against protesters. Earlier on Friday, 32 people were arrested after protesting at a Trump rally in St. Louis, and as one was taken away during the event, Trump suggested that the treatment of protesters wasnt violent enough, noting that part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long [to kick protesters out] is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore. Trump had also praised a supporter who was arrested after assaulting a protester as that protester was being escorted out of a rally in North Carolina earlier in the week. Trump has repeatedly denied, when pressed in interviews, that he or his supporters are to blame for the violence, insisting that it has the been the protesters who have started the various altercations. A Trump supporter heckles anti-Trump protesters in Chicago on Friday night. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images While groups of protesters have regularly targeted Trump events in the past, Friday night marked what was surely the most organized attempt yet to disrupt a Trump rally, as protesters, both young and diverse, arrived by the thousands and made their presence felt both in and outside the arena, often to the bewilderment of mostly white, mostly older Trump supporters. While some skirmishes occurred inside the arena, the Guardian also points to additional violence outside as protesters clashed with police and at one point amassed by the parking garage adjacent to the arena in an attempt to prevent Trump supporters cars from leaving: A spontaneous blockade of a parking garage formed, creating a standoff between screaming Trump supporters in the multi-level lot and screaming protesters on the ground below. From high up Trump supporters reportedly spat down on protesters who were chanting Fuck Donald Trump and preventing anyone leaving. Eventually, after police cleared a path for people to depart, protesters jeered and gestured at each car and its occupants making their way past barricades and a long column of mounted police. Trump and his surrogates have since insisted Trump and his supporters First Amendment rights were violated: The organized group of people, many of them thugs, who shut down our First Amendment rights in Chicago, have totally energized America! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2016 Calling in to discuss the nights events on CNN, Trump blamed general divisiveness in the country as well as economic pressures, and suggested that high unemployment among African-Americans had contributed to the behavior of the protesters. (Reports indicate that many of the protesters were African-American and Muslim students, but photos and videos of the anti-Trump crowds indicate they were many Latino and Caucasian protesters involved as well.) Said one Trump supporter to the AP, I hear all this free speech crap, but they want to shut down free speech for us. Another, who said he and his 9-year-old daughter were cursed at by protesters as they exited the event, commented that They scream about tolerance, but are being intolerant themselves. That doesnt make sense. On the other side, protesters seemed to be ecstatic about the result of their efforts, chanting We stopped Trump! as news of the postponement spread. As one participant told the New York Times, [the protesters] got the job done. Someone has to object to this hatred. The people inside have a right to be there. But we have a right to be here, too. Meanwhile another protester gloated to the Guardian, If [Trump] cant even handle Chicago, what makes him think he could handle ISIS? Prior to the event, many in the University of Illinois community had also tried to prevent the event from happening in the first place, insisting that Trumps views were incompatible with the schools values and worrying that hate-group members might be among the pro-Trump crowd. The Times reports that about 10,000 people had signed up on Facebook to attend an anti-Trump march, and some faculty members had penned a letter to school administrators asking them to distance the school from Trump. There were also signs that Bernie Sanders supporters made up a large contingent of the protesters: Protesters blocking a garage pic.twitter.com/wy4O8x5hKQ Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) March 12, 2016 Trump made the Sanders connection himself when speaking with supporters on Saturday, a connection Sanders himself later rejected, saying in a statement that, As is the case virtually every day, Donald Trump is showing the American people that he is a pathological liar. Obviously, while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trumps rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests. Elsewhere on Friday night, Trumps GOP rivals were quick to link to violence to the candidate himself. Ted Cruz blamed the culture of Trumps campaign at a press conference following the events in Chicago: Speaking with Fox News on Friday night, Marco Rubio cited a similar logic, noting that Trump has in the past used some pretty rough language and encouraging the crowd, saying things like, In the good old days we used to beat these people up, or Ill pay your legal bills if you rough em up. So I think he bears some responsibility for the general tone of the things that are happening. John Kasich added in a statement Friday that Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly. Alexander Solzhenitsyn on Lying Ayn Rand Francisco, whats the most depraved type of human being? The man without a purpose. Ronald Reagan "We need a government that is confident not of what it can do, but of what the people can do." The People are the Sovereign Power "The People are the government, administering it by their agents; They are the government, the sovereign power." Andrew Jackson Tyranny Exercised for the Good of its Victims Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be cured against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. C. S. Lewis Mignon: Bust of Rose Beuret by Rodin Legitimate Government A government that serves as a palladium for the many and broad rights of the sovereign individual is legitimate. Unequal things are not equal Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survivalso that for you, who are a human being, the question to be or not to be is the question to think or not to think. Ayn Rand The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed, or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. Alexander Solzhenitsyn on Socialist Liars We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie. Freedom and Safety Ben Franklin: "Those that give up their freedom for safety deserve neither." Joe Biden: "This is not about freedom, this is for your safety." Sam Zell "I simply don't buy into many of the made-up rules of social convention. The bottom line is: If you're really good at what you do, you have the freedom to be who you are." Ayn Rand Quote Albert Einstein "Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." Patrick Henry H.L. Mencken Both Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming and Covid-19 have become such false fronts. "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." Constitution and Chris Cuomo Thomas Sowell on Racism Eisenhower on Party Legitimacy Ayn Rand Search This Blog Howard Roark The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand "Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value .... There is no substitute for personal dignity." Robert Bidinotto ... the *main* target of individualists' moral proselytizing ought to be the Zero-Sum Narrative, i.e., the belief in inherent conflicts of interest among people -- and not altruism per se, which is mainly an emotionally driven *reaction* to the zero-sum worldview. We need to teach people that economic relationships in a free society are "win/win," not "win/lose." We need to teach what 19th-century thinker Frederic Bastiat labeled "Economic Harmonies." Ralph Waldo Emerson "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind." G. K. Chesterton "Even the tyrant never rules by force alone; but mostly by fairy tales." Ayn Rand "Serenity comes from the ability to say 'Yes' to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say 'No' to the wrong choices of others." The Atlas Society "You were born an original. Don't die a copy." "Your life is your story. Write well. Edit often." John Wooden "Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out." Seneca "It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." Peter Diamandis "The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself." Howard Roark - The Fountainhead Democracy is Tyranny Thomas Paine: "A democracy is the vilest form of Government there is." John Adams: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams: "You have rights antecedent to all earthy governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws;...." This is why our government is a Republic and not a democracy. James Madison: In a pure democracy "there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual." Mikhail Baryshnikov Cronyism and Socialism Advocates of Equality Ayn Rand "Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind." David Kelley "It is the act of creating value that reflects the best within us, and is the center of a happy life." Calvin Coolidge "It is much more important to kill bad bills, than to pass good ones." The Welfare State Becomes the Totalitarian State Rights are not a Gift of Government Thomas Jefferson, 1774 "A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." The Creative Man "A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others." Ayn Rand To Fill the World with Fools "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." Herbert Spencer Ben Franklin "Democracy ... is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty ... is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Francisco speaking to Dagny -"...there's nothing of any importance in life - except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics They'll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard. " Charles R. Anderson Wishing that the provision of a good or service were free is not an idea of great merit. If the good or service can be made free without harming others, then it has negligible value. If it has value, then the harm done to others by making it "free" will be substantial. Is not harm a cost in itself? So can there be a free good or service of any value? Clearly no. Ayn Rand on Collectivism Milton Friedman "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." Once Surrendering His Reason "Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck." Thomas Jefferson (1822) Winston Churchill Governments create nothing, but what they give they have first taken away you may put money in the pockets of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishman, and the greater part will be spilled on the way. Speech 11 November 1903 [HT Tom Anderson] Name-Calling is Indicative of a Weak Argument Isabel Paterson "Poverty can be brought about by law; it cannot be forbidden by law." Reagan on Government's Place John Stuart Mill "The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it." Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. Frederick Douglass "To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." Brutality is not Idealistic "Do not ever consider Collectivists as 'sincere but deluded idealists.' The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not 'idealistic,' no matter what its purpose." Ayn Rand, textbook of americanism.com Work is an Act of Creating "Whether it's a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one's own eyes." Ayn Rand Charles R. Anderson "Government is legitimate only to the extent that it protects the exercise of everyone's broad, many, and sovereign individual rights. Such limited-purpose government, often called Capitalism, is the only government system which allows individuals to make their own moral choices and live their lives in accordance with their choices. Capitalism minimizes the use of force and maximizes the freedom of cooperation and association within a society. It is in such a society that a rational man chooses to live and produce." George Washington "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. It is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Thomas Jefferson "A wise and frugal government which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry -- this is the sum of good government." Ayn Rand "Your life belongs to you and the good is to live it." "He who speaks of sacrifice speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." "He who speaks of sacrifice speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." Ayn Rand on Theft, Murder, and Collectivism "Many men now believe that it is evil to rob, murder and torture for one's own sake, but virtuous to do so for the sake of others. You may not indulge in brutality for your own gain, they say, but go right ahead if its for the gain of others. Perhaps the most revolting statement one can ever hear is: "Sure Stalin has butchered millions, but its justifiable, since it's for the benefit of the masses." Collectivism is the last stand of savagery in men's minds." from Textbook of Americanism Thomas Paine "It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry." Dr. Thomas Sowell "I have never understood why it is greed to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take someone else's money." Calvin Coolidge "Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong." Thomas Jefferson "I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others." David Kelley "If we are right, we have nothing to fear; if we are wrong, we have something to learn." Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. Eric Hoffer "Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength." E-mail Address Charles.R.Anderson@gmail.com Private correspondence is welcome from interested, rational individualists. There are few enough of us that we should highly value one another and any friendships that might grow from contact. Blog Archive Ayn Rand on Morality "The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live." Anthem by Ayn Rand Man the individualist, not men the collectivists. "For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men." Dr. Edwin Lewis, A First Book in Writing English "To gain new words and new ideas, the student must compel himself to read slowly. Impatient to hurry on and learn how the tale or poem ends, many a youth is accustomed to read so rapidly as to miss the best part of what the author is trying to say. Thoughts cannot be read so rapidly as words. To get at the thoughts and really to retain the valuable expressions, the student must scrutinize and ponder as he reads. Each word must be thoroughly understood; its exact value in the given sentence must be grasped." A high school textbook for freshmen and sophomores used around 1900. James Madison "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by gradual and silent ancroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations: but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism." General George S. Patton "If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn't thinking." H. L. Mencken "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face to rule it." George Orwell "The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history." National Park Scientist David Graber People have become "a cancer ... a plague upon the Earth. Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along." H. L. Mencken "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Thomas H. Huxley "The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." Thomas Jefferson on Democracy "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Prince Philip of the United Kingdom I bet he would like to concentrate his human eradication efforts on the Deplorables and not on the Aristocracy or the Progressive Elitists. "In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation." Henry Ford "Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work." Thomas Jefferson on Truth Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them." " Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Niccolo Machiavelli "One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived." Sherlock Holmes "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." Or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle if you prefer. Mary McCarthy "Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism." Sen. Tim Wirth, Democrat, Colorado "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory is wrong, we will be doing the right thing." Bismarck "Fools learn by experience, the wise man learns by the experience of others." Albert Einstein As Albert Einstein once said about the book "One Hundred Authors Against Einstein": Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would be enough. Governments are Never Sovereign Only individuals are sovereign. Governments are either legitimate or illegitimate. They are legitimate only to the extent that they protect the exercise of every individual's right to life; liberty; the ownership of their own mind, body, and labor; their property; their freedom of conscience and association, and the pursuit of their own happiness. No government on Earth is highly legitimate. Most are highly illegitimate. So sayeth Charles R. Anderson. Dr. Thomas Sowell is Retiring "The real minimum wage is zero." "The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best." "People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do." "The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses, it is about the egos of the elites." "If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism." "Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." Prof. Walter E. Williams on Democracy "... one of the primary dangers of majority rule is that it confers an aura of legitimacy and respectability to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical." Ayn Rand on Minorities "The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." Hillary Clinton on Job Creation Socialists never want anyone to credit individuals with a productive purpose as the source of their jobs. When the government piles on such heavy taxes and regulations as to prevent job formation, they are always trying to misdirect the people's attention. Hillary has been vigorous in promising more taxes and more major regulations which will make the Obama record of 0.5% annual increases in real per capita GDP look good in comparison. "Don't let anybody tell you that, you know, its corporations and businesses that create jobs." Frederic Bastiat "It's impossible to introduce into society a greater evil than this, the conversion of Law into an instrument of PLUNDER." Ayn Rand "The number of its adherents is irrelevant to the truth or falsehood of an idea. A majority is as fallible as a minority or as an individual man. A majority vote is not an epistemological validation of an idea." ... "it is important to note the epistemological significance of a free society. In a free society, the pursuit of truth is protected by the free access of any individual to any field of endeavor he may choose to enter." ... "This prevents the formation of any coercive "elite" in any profession -- it prevents the legalized enforcement of a "monopoly on truth" by any gang of power seekers -- it protects the free market place of ideas -- it keeps all doors open to man's inquiring mind." The catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis is no exception to these general truths about the right of every individual to examine and evaluate any idea. significance of a free society. In a free society, the pursuit of truth is protected by the free access of any individual to any field of endeavor he may choose to enter." ... "This prevents the formation of any coercive "elite" in any profession -- it prevents the legalized enforcement of a "monopoly on truth" by any gang of power seekers -- it protects the free market place of ideas -- it keeps all doors open to man's inquiring mind." Charles at Naval Surface Warfare Center Do Not Subordinate Your Mind to the Mind of Another The vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence. John Galt in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand UN Agenda 21, Principle 15 The real operating principle: Neither shall total lack of scientific certainty delay taking action with catastrophic economic effects if one can imagine some environmental degradation. "In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation." Dr. Thomas Sowell "What 'multiculturalism' boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture -- and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture." "It is so easy to be wrong -- and to persist in being wrong -- when the costs of being wrong are paid by others." "Intellectuals have trouble remembering that they are not God." "If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today." Saul Alinsky It is good to understand what the nihilists think, especially since such politicians as Obama and Hillary admire this man and use his principles for damaging the private sector and Capitalism. "To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life." Ronald Reagan A democratic society that needs a much-controlling government to manage the affairs of its People has a People so lacking in character and ability that there is no hope the People can democratically elect leaders of good character and adequate capability. That society is doomed by a self-contradiction. The escape from doom is the development in the People of such character and ability that they shun a much-controlling government. "If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" Aesop "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." Examples: Obama, both Clintons, Kerry, Sanders, Biden, Reid, and Pelosi. Christine Stewart, Canadian Minister of the Environment What a sad thing is attempted justice without truth. "No matter if the science of global warming is all phony.... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." Aldous Huxley "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." Ayn Rand "'There are no evil thoughts, Mr. Rearden,' Francisco said softly, 'except one: the refusal to think.'" Francisco D'Anconia to Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged Frederic Bastiat on the Law "It has been used to destroy its own objective. It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense. Louis L'Amour in High Lonesome "Nor were they free of the images their own minds held of themselves. The man on horseback, the lone-riding man, the lone-thinking man, possessed an image of himself that was in part his own, in part a piece of all the dime novels he had read, for no man is free of the image his literature imposes on him. And the dime novel made the western hero a knight-errant, a man on horseback rescuing the weak and helpless." "Folks talk a lot about the maternal feeling in women, but they say nothing about man's need to protect and care for someone; yet the one feeling is as basic as the other." Dr. Thomas Sowell "Even liberal professors can be adversely affected by the narrow groupthink that prevails. Without an opposition to keep them on their toes, they can develop sloppy habits of dismissing or even demonizing differing viewpoints, instead of practicing and teaching their students how to come to grips with opposing beliefs." From Dry Rot in Academia "Today one can literally go from kindergarten to becoming a graduate student seeking a Ph.D., without ever hearing a vision of the world that conflicts with the vision of the left." John Stuart Mill "In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character was abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time." Josepth Stalin "We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?" Robert Tracinski "The way we view the naked human body reflects our view of human nature itself. We portray our bodies in ways that are crude or refined depending on whether we view our souls as crude or refined. And we do the same with the sensuality and the sexual capacity of our bodies. We can view sex and the nude body as a dangerous temptation that draws us away from higher ideals and down into the muckor we can make it part of those higher ideals. We can make it an expression of a wider lust for life, an expression of the same spirit of aspiration that drives all of our other achievements." The Three Graces by Antonio Canova David by Michelangelo Frederic Bastiat "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." "But how is this legal plunder to be to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." Ayn Rand on Excellence "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing." Ayn Rand "The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see." Patrick Henry "No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." H. L. Mencken "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." Catastrophic man-made global warming is a great example of such alarmism to justify more power for the politicians and bureaucrats. Thomas Jefferson "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add, `within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrants will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." Ayn Rand "Serenity comes from the ability to say 'Yes' to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say 'No' to the wrong choices made by others." Galileo Galilei "In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." "By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox." Henry Ford "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Samuel Adams "The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks." The Constitution itself remains a strong defense of our individual rights, but those who want power over our lives have long claimed ridiculous interpretations of the powers it grants to the federal government which they have cemented in irrational precedents. Time after time, the fact that our individual rights are broad and must allow each of us to manage our own lives while we pursue our own chosen values, so long as we do not violate the equal rights of others, is a context ignored. Thomas Jefferson, 1816 "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." When the government controls the education system, you can be sure the education system will guarantee the ignorance of the people so they may be ruled without the impediment of the people demanding their individual rights. John C. Goodman "Closing Off Consumption Opportunities. Just as low-income individuals in their role as producers are increasing[ly] regulated out of income earning opportunities, in their role as consumers they are increasingly regulated out of the market for essential services. In addition to education and housing, they have been regulated out of the market for medical care, transportation and even police protection. For all these essential services, the wealthy turn to the private marketplace. They even employ police officers as off-duty, private guards for their gated communities. The poor are left with public housing, public schools, public transportation, government-provided health care, etc. The well-off get all the benefits of capitalism. The poor are left with socialism." Averroes "An army of philosophers would not be sufficient to change the nature of error and to make it truth." An army of scientist mercenaries at the service of All-Controlling Government is not sufficient to make the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis true either. Ayn Rand on the Creative Man "A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others." Lawrence W. Reed "It constantly amazes me that defenders of the free market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions." Patrick Henry "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government lest it come to dominate our lives and our interests." Prof. Walter E. Williams "That initial premise is that each of us owns himself. Stated another way: I am my private property and you are yours. The institution of private property is the right held by the owner of property to keep, acquire, dispose, and exclude from use. The premise of self-ownership determines which human acts are moral or immoral and consistent with that premise. For example, rape, murder, slavery, fraud, and theft are immoral because they violate private property." Thomas Jefferson The "sum of good government" is one "which shall restrain men from injuring one another" and "shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement." The presumption is maximum liberty limited not by the welfare of others, but only by the injunction to do no harm to others. H. L. Mencken "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." Madison Versus Hitler "(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." James Madison "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." Adolf Hitler Frederic Bastiat "The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education." Mark Twain "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." This certainly applies to those who believe in the catastrophic man-made global warming alarmists, minimum wage laws, ObamaCare, the ethanol in gasoline mandate, and tying solar and wind power in high percentages to the electric grid. Prof. Walter E. Williams on White Privilege "The concept of white privilege, along with diversity and multiculturalism, is part of today's campus craze. ..... The bottom line to this campus nonsense is that "privilege" has become the new word for "personal achievement." .... Are those who work hard, take risks, make life better for others and become wealthy in the process the people who should be held up to ridicule and scorn? And should we make mascots out of social parasites?" Albert Einstein "A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth." Prof. John Christy, Climate Scientist If its not economically sustainable, its not sustainable. Ayn Rand on Human Progress "Man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress." George Orwell "The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it." Abbot of Arbroath, Chancellor of Robert the Bruce "For so long as one hundred of us shall remain alive we shall never in any wise consent to submit to the rule of the English. For it is not for glory we fight, for riches, or for honours, but for freedom alone, which no good man loses but with his life." April 1320, Six years after the Battle of Bannockburn Jean-Jacques Rousseau "whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free." If one is told " 'it is expedient for the state that you should die,' he should die." From The Social Contract, a most emphatic statement of authoritarian collectivism by a profound misanthropist. Patrick Henry "The Constitution is NOT an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the PEOPLE to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interest." Dwight D. Eisenhower "If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government." Alexander Hamilton "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government." Milton Friedman A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. John Quincy Adams "Muhammad declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind... The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Muhammad is the prophet of God." Justice Robert H. Jackson "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." This applies to the government-run education system, as well as every other act of government, including its procurements. Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead "Don't bother to examine a folly, ask only what it accomplishes." Ayn Rand's villain giving us insight into the beliefs of the Progressive Elitists and others with beliefs too divorced from reality to be creditable, yet widely believed or propagated. Thomas Jefferson "let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution." Of course this belief implies those great constraints on democracy imposed by the Constitution. Robert Tracinski "The real minimum wage is zero. Actually, its less than zero: the real minimum wage is going into debt just to have a shot at doing the work you love." I went hugely into debt to set up my materials analysis laboratory and paid myself only $10,000 in the first year and even less in the Obama Recession years of 2010 - 2016. Obama When what youre doing doesnt work for 50 years, its time to try something new. 2015 State of the Union Address So, we should ditch Big Government, government health care, The War on Poverty, The War on Drugs, Social Security, the Federal Reserve, government-run education, the Davis-Bacon Act, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the Jones Act), and all expansionist interpretations of the Interstate Commerce and the Taxation Clauses of the Constitution upon this Obama Principle of Failure. Louis L'Amour "If he starts anything with me I'll just cloud up and rain all over him." Conagher "You better ride out of here, Staples. An' leave that gun alone. You ain't fit to handle one. And don't you cross my trail again. I don't like bein' braced by no tin-horn." Conagher "To be a man was to be responsible. It was as simple as that. To be a man was to build something, to try to make the world about him a bit easier to live in for himself and those who followed." Conagher "it was the man who planted a tree, dug a well, or graded a road who mattered." "Conagher had worked too hard too many times to like a thief or a vandal who would steal or destroy the efforts of other men." "when in doubt, sit down and think. It is only the mind of man that has lifted him above the animals." Evie's Dad"If he starts anything with me I'll just cloud up and rain all over him." Conagher"You better ride out of here, Staples. An' leave that gun alone. You ain't fit to handle one. And don't you cross my trail again. I don't like bein' braced by no tin-horn." Conagher"To be a man was to be responsible. It was as simple as that. To be a man was to build something, to try to make the world about him a bit easier to live in for himself and those who followed." Conagher"it was the man who planted a tree, dug a well, or graded a road who mattered.""Conagher had worked too hard too many times to like a thief or a vandal who would steal or destroy the efforts of other men." Big Bill Knudsen on Progress "Progress is only made when fear is overcome by curiosity. If you are curious enough, you will not have any fear." William S. Knudsen Elbert Hubbard "Prison is a Socialist's Paradise, where equality prevails, everything is supplied, and competition is eliminated." Charles R. Anderson "Every law mandates more guns. Most laws now outlaw individual value choices and more voluntary cooperation among individuals." Bad Deeds by Robert Bidinotto Charles Anderson on Hope ".... hope is contingent upon having the freedom to make your own value choices and make their achievement your personal dream. Without the dream, there is no hope. Without the value choice, there is no dream." A Collapsing Predation, a Plea for Salvation "These are just plain, ordinary people, Mr. Galt, " said Chick Morrison in a tone intended to project their abject humility. "They can't tell you what to do. They wouldn't know. They're merely begging you. They may be weak, helpless, blind, ignorant. But you, who are so intelligent and strong, can't you take pity on them? Can't you help them?" "By dropping my intelligence and following their blindness?" "They may be wrong, but they don't know any better!" "But I, who do, should obey them?" From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Sen. Tom Coburn Addressing the Senate "Your whole goal is to protect the United States of America, its Constitution and its liberties. It's not to provide benefits for your state. That's where we differ -- that's where my conflict with my colleagues has come. It's nice to be able to do things for your state, but that isn't our charge. Our charge is to protect the future of our country by upholding the Constitution." December 2014 James Madison on Laws "It will be of little avail to the people ... if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." Yet this is exactly the sorry state of law in America today. Even the legislators whose full-time job is to make laws cannot read them before voting on them. How can it even be imagined that a small businessman can know the law and the voluminous regulations applied most especially and most vigorously to commercial endeavors? It cannot be so imagined, which makes it clear that the intent is to make every businessman a criminal precariously dependent upon the goodwill of those with power in the government. Charles R. Anderson on Argument "Observe which side resorts to the most vociferous name-calling and you are likely to have identified the side with the weaker argument and they know it." From my statement in the Senate Minority Report of 2008 on Man-Made Global Warming Claims. Ben Franklin " Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." Ayn Rand on Force and Morality From Atlas Shrugged "Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins." The Neverending Battle for Freedom Winston Churchill "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy." Ludwig von Mises "A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings." Ayn Rand on Truth Seeking "The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it." Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. Benno Schmidt, President of Yale, March 1991 "The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses ... The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind." Tacitus, 56 - 120 A.D. "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. " The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state. The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state. George Eliot "The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but one must take it because it's right." Is that not all times? Public Servant Tyrants "The people must remain ever vigilant against tyrants masquerading as public servants." George Washington Aristotle on Inequality "The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." Claiming unequal things equal in mathematics is obviously wrong, but so is claiming the equality of an individual with good character to an individual of bad character fraught with deleterious consequences. Mencken on Public Education "The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: It is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956) Thomas Edison "From his neck down, a man is worth a couple of dollars a day; from his neck up, he is worth anything his brain can invent." Ayn Rand on Self-Assurance "But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself." From The Fountainhead Frederick Douglass A mans rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. William S. Knudsen "A conference is a gathering of guys that singly can do nothing and together decide nothing can be done." Big Bill Knudsen was the manufacturing genius from the automotive industry who decided that U.S. WWII warfare production should be performed in the private sector with as little government interference as possible. U.S. production overwhelmed that of the Axis Powers as a result and the transition back to peace-time production was vastly eased. He is a little-recognized American Hero. Margaret Thatcher "Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy." Pajama Boy for ObamaCare Ayn Rand on Lack of Self-Direction "The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap." From The Fountainhead Bastiat on Socialism "Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a wholewith their common aim of legal plunderconstitute socialism." Frederic Bastiat, 1801-1850 James Madison Property is "every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage." "He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them." "Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own." "That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property so called." "If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property: which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, ... such a government is not a pattern for the United States." [Yet such a property violating government we now have.] Obama According to Ron Pisaturo "My opponents dont have a plan for the economy, for education, for training, for retirement, for health care, for energy, for jobs, for wages, for investments, for diets. What kind of dictators are they?" Ron Pisaturo's paraphrase of Obama's State of the Union Address in January 2014. Starve the Kleptocracy and Tyranny John Galt on the Battle John Galt says in Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth. Groucho Marx "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." Charles in Pensacola, FL Andrew Jackson "Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government .... If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, [government] would be an unqualified blessing." Jay Leno "The White House admitted President Obamas chief of staff had advance warning that the IRS was targeting conservative groups. President Obama says the first time he heard about the IRS and AP scandals was from the media. See, thats why President Obama holds press conferences. Its not to explain whats going on. Its to find out whats going on." Government is too big to be well-managed even by a competent manager. It is now apparent what happens when the chief executive is incompetent, but is convinced he is the chief Progressive Elitist. Thomas Jefferson "The democracy will cease when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." James I, King of Great Britain "The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods." There is historical precedent for the level of hubris of the Progressive Elitist rulers of our time. Just as James I tried to rule independently of Parliament with a claim of god-like knowledge, so does Obama rule independently of our Congress, secure in the belief that he too has a god-like knowledge of what is best for the People. 2nd Amendment Right Calvin Coolidge Reduced top income tax rate to 25%. Reduced the national debt. Balanced and reduced the budget. Vetoed 50 bills. "I am for economy, and after that I am for more economy. It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. A Novel by Gen LaGreca Jean Jacques Burlamaqui "Natural liberty is the right, which nature gives to all mankind, of disposing of their persons and property, after the manner they judge most convenient to their happiness, on condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature, and their not abusing it to the prejudice of their fellow men. To this right of liberty there is a reciprocal obligation corresponding, by which the law of nature binds all mankind to respect the liberty of other men, and not to disturb them in the use they make of it, so long as they do not abuse it." Frederick Douglass Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. Pamela Geller In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, Defeat Jihad Roger Scruton, 2006 The English law existed not to control the individual but to free him. Laurence J. Peter Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. Ben Franklin - 2nd Amendment This is why every individual has the right to defend himself, as recognized in the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights. "Democracy... Is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty... Is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." John Milton "Where there is much desire to learn, here of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making." Cato's Letters "the power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his own Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys." They Would Rule the People Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged, Part II Democracy -- The Suicide "Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814 Thomas Jefferson "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Praise the Constitution Ayn Rand: Philosophical Detection Alan MacFarlane, 1978 The majority of ordinary people in England from at least the thirteenth century were rampant individualists, highly mobile both geographically and socially, economically rational, market-oriented and acquisitive, ego-centered in kinship and social life. Perhaps this is no surprise, for it makes them very like their descendants. On Error and Judgment by Ayn Rand An error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error. Howard Roark at his trial: "I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need." ..... "I wished to come and say that the integrity of a man's creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who're destroying the world." ... "I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society." Thomas Jefferson "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Support Science, Reason Atlas Shrugged Part I - The Movie Thomas Paine on Reason California Venus George Bernard Shaw "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." Paul's immorality is soon characteristic of the entire society, contributing evermore to strife and conflict and the discouragement of productive labor. Fight Big Government Thomas Paine on Principle "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." Limited Government Capitalism is the only system that allows Individuals to make their own moral choices and to act upon them. Without individual moral choice, there is no morality and society is mean, brutal, envious, and depressing. The Homage of Reason "Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson Tocqueville a mans admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him. First ObamaCare Stole Your Body In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours. But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, and grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth. John Galt in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Hunter -- A Thriller by Robert Bidinotto Socialized Medicine Immoral Government Health Care Barack Hussein Obama A Compass that almost always points to the South Pole. Consensus Consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually"- Abba Eban Obama's Socialism Rose Robbins - Singer/Songwriter Who is John Galt? From John Galt's Speech to Americans in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: "I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values." "Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act, he must know the nature and purpose of his action." "But to think is an act of choice." ..... "In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival -- so that for you , who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be" is the question 'to think or not to think.' "A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. 'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it. 'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible." "There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence -- and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms." "Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice." "A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality." "Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose . If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man -- for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life." "Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness -- to value the failure of your values -- is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altar of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man -- every man -- is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose." Thus said John Galt, or shall we say Ayn Rand, the great novelist, philosopher, moralist, and Capitalism's greatest moral defender. The quoted sections above are an abridgment of John Galt's speech in the novel Atlas Shrugged . Between the quotes, no changes were made. A Call to the Sons of Liberty John Paul Jones Charles R. Anderson, Ph. D. The First Known Use of the Concept Freedom The Rational Mind Seeks Truth in the critical observation and understanding of reality. Reality is primary, not man's wishes and whims. Followers Elizabeth Zanzinger Total Pageviews ugh Reply Thread Link Nooo, his show about rehabilitating dogs and finding them families was the only thing I could watch for days after my doggy had to be put to sleep. It was the only thing that stopped me from crying. Reply Thread Link He doesn't rehabilitate. He stressed dogs out and he gets the desired action out of them by using fear. If you want a trainer go follow - follow Zak George, Victoria Stilwell and Karen Pryor to name a few. Reply Parent Thread Link nooooo that's awful. i guess his ways always seemed sort of domineering. Reply Parent Thread Link You should watch It's Me Or The Dog with Victoria Stilwell. She only uses positive training methods. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Same here bby <3 I went through a really rough time and could only stand to watch his show. I already knew about the negativity but I dunno....I still just want good things for the dogs and Cesar Reply Parent Thread Link Cesar has always made me uncomfortable for some reason, and I couldn't articulate why. I think some of his techniques are good, but that feeling was so strong for me. I much prefer Jackson Galaxy. Now, I don't agree w/ everything he says either, but he doesn't set my radar off at all. Jackson really does know cats. Reply Thread Link Jackson Galaxy is great! Reply Parent Thread Link the kitty man is great <3 Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Jackson Galaxy. he seems like a really cool guy but i dont watch his show cause i cant stand to see kitties in distress :( even if there is a happy ending Reply Parent Thread Link I like Jackson, but sometimes he talks about weird shit like cat calming sprays that are literally just scented oil. Reply Parent Thread Link yeah, he's into homeopathic stuff which i take with a box of rock salt, but all his other advice is great. Reply Parent Thread Link jackson is an angel jackson is an angel Reply Parent Thread Link He and his methods have always been shady. Reply Thread Link He is a charlatan Reply Parent Thread Link I can't believe they still give a show to this asshole. It's 2016 and dominance theory is bullshit and outdated as it applies to dog behavior. Even more frustrating, similar hack-ass trainers continue to flourish off the mass of people being misinformed and influenced by his shows. Edited at 2016-03-12 12:06 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link ... what the fuck Reply Thread Link This guy is a negligent idiot as is anyone else who still use his outdated methods to train. Edited at 2016-03-12 12:07 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link I remember one of his shows where he gave a doggy a little rucksack to carry nappies in so that he would feel included when his owners baby arrived Reply Thread Link semi-OT but was sad to hear this :( With a sad heart, I must announce that Bruiser Woods (aka Moonie) has passed away... https://t.co/N2JPE1ikdK pic.twitter.com/TSh6H1bMrJ Reese Witherspoon (@RWitherspoon) March 11, 2016 that's horriblesemi-OT but was sad to hear this :( Reply Thread Link I'm watching legally blonde rn :( Reply Parent Thread Link omg no! I'll watch both movies saturday in his tribute <3 Reply Parent Thread Link Aw, why do I find it so sweet she tweeted about it? LOL Reply Parent Thread Link aww RIP Reply Parent Thread Link haven't been rumours of him being abusive towars the dogs he "trains" for years? so sad tho :( Reply Thread Link How the hell could letting the dog attack be in any way a good form of training?? Reply Thread Link I feel like I've heard rumours ages ago about him mistreating animals. Reply Thread Link I thought that was why his original show was canceled? The rumors were getting out of hand so animal planet noped out on him. Reply Parent Thread Link what's so bad about his training methods? i really don't know. Reply Thread Link Where do I start. I'll post more when I get back home- but basically he pays no mind to canine body language. The dogs he says are " calm submissive " are really just stressed and show signs of displacement behavior. his leash corrections and kicks and karate chopping just stresses dogs out. They have no marker (reward) for the behavior he wants to get out of them Reply Parent Thread Link They're based on the whole "be the pack leader/alpha" idea. You know the whole thing where a wolf pack has to have a leader, called the alpha? This was a theory from the 1950s or 1960s that came from watching groups of wolves interact. However, these wolves were all just strangers who were thrown in an enclosure together- real wolf packs are actually family members, and the "alphas" are actually the parents (the rest are recent litters because wolves mate yearly, and in larger packs there may be a couple of these families). So this theory wasn't even based on real life. Since dogs are related to wolves, a lot of the ideas about how dogs interact with their family came from these old studies on wolves. But wild dogs don't really have a pack like wolves do- and even if they did, it wouldn't matter, because the whole "alpha" thing is bullshit based on bad science anyway. He also tends to use positive punishment, where animals are punished when they do something you don't like. This is a bad idea when training dogs. Pretty much everyone who studies dogs and gets their PhD in dog behavior say that positive reinforcement is the best way to train a dog. It's more difficult and requires more patience than positive punishment, which is probably why it's not as popular... So you have this guy who thinks that he needs to be the alpha, and if the dog doesn't react appropriately to this idea, he punishes them until they act in whatever way he deems to be submissive enough for him. There's wayyyyy more to it than this but I hope this gives a general idea. :( Reply Parent Thread Link Yes! I'm so tired of hearing people repeat the damn alpha argument Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Fucking ty for providing some explanation beyond "I heard once his stuff is totes bad 'cause like it just is okay ugh." I have no feelings on him one way or the other, but I feel like the past time or two this shit has come up it's just everyone going OMG HE DEF SUCKS 'CAUSE THIS ARTICLE I CAN'T REALLY REMEMBER FROM A WHILE AGO SAID HE DOES and it's like... okay but that's a hazy memory from Entertainment Weekly saying that someone somewhere at some point said a bad thing so like maybe someone who knows something about dogs could chime in? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Thanks for saying this! Dog trainers who are all about this dominance shit gross me out. I have always talked sweetly to my dogs and even allowed them to annoy me or sleep on my bed, but they have never questioned my authority. Because I was their mom/pack and not their bully. I feel like this alpha mentality prevails because it's such a comfortable one. Too many people need someone to boss around and intimmidate. It validates them. And I want to add that most dog trainers in the past have told me my dog is not well behaved because she does puppy biting on my hand when I play with her. To their shock she immediatly let go of my hand when I told her to. They couldn't even fathom that dogs are smart enough to understand what they can or can't do based on the person. Another example is my dog doing low sounds/murmurs to wake me up from sleep. A trainer once told me that was actually a growl and I was just like "no, she is mimicking me waking her up. That's just what she observed me doing". So much money wasted, lol. Edited at 2016-03-12 11:33 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link thanks for all of this. i've watched his show several times, but since i know nothing about dog training, i had no idea he was problematic. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link http://why-animals-do-the-thing.tumblr.com/tagged/cesar-millan Just a warning, the post which starts with the ask "what do you have to support the fact he abuses animals" has a gif of him hitting a dog. This blog does a good job at explaining his problemsJust a warning, the post which starts with the ask "what do you have to support the fact he abuses animals" has a gif of him hitting a dog. Reply Parent Thread Link http://why-animals-do-the-thing.tumblr.com/post/140033864406/the-damage-of-dog-whispering This post in particular is really informative Reply Parent Thread Link That's the exact episode this is about. Reply Parent Thread Link I watched an ep where he held a frightened chihuahua to a big dog's face who was known for killing small dogs... Reply Parent Thread Link Jesus Christ Reply Parent Thread Link i feel so bad for her. she is such a sweetheart. Reply Thread Link That sucks :( especially since people probably were side eyeing for working with him Reply Thread Link People really need to stop attacking upcoming artists when they likely have no choice because of their label. :( It sucks that terrible people are pushed by the label, still have careers, and established artists that will work with them too. Reply Thread Link hell, even a lot of established artists don't have much of a choice. people can really overestimate the control a lot of celebs have over certain aspects of their career. Reply Parent Thread Link by now, it should be quite obvious that not all artists have creative control and are forced to work with certain people. kelly clarkson was forced to work with collaborate with dr. luke. Reply Parent Thread Link a bunch of my friends are at her show tonight, kinda bum i skipped out on it :( they all got pics with ha Reply Thread Link You missed out a great show, dumbass!!! She's gonna do a second leg after album release tho so it isn't all lost. Reply Parent Thread Link I don't understand why they're not pushing her?? She's the whole package.. Reply Thread Link RCA has never been a great label and right now they're focused on Zayn, according to a DM she sent to her fans. Reply Parent Thread Link oh good, more Sony -.- Reply Parent Thread Link It's literally 1 minute! It's just the question about CB. Reply Parent Thread Link I still love you Tinashe, but a music video with Chris Brown was unnecessary sis! Reply Thread Link I get the song sis, I don't get why he had to be in the video too. rme. Reply Parent Thread Link I figured that was the case. That said I still hated how she reacted to the criticism. Reply Thread Link I've been jamming so hard to Ride of Your Life lately. I can't wait for the new album. Reply Thread Link I think it really sucks that labels make young women work with known abusers Reply Thread Link That sucks :( I literally just came from her show, and her breathe control is amazing. Reply Thread Link smh that sucks Reply Thread Link i figured thats what happened. These labels dont know how to market 'black ' r&b artists anymore so they just throw together a chris brown or rap artist collaboration and hope for a hit. RIP 90s r& b. Reply Thread Link i knew she wouldn't work with that gutter troll willingly. (solo version) player is is so good and should've been a huge hit! she just keeps remaining the most underrated artist in the music industry Reply Thread Link i hated all the main characters in this show lmao. the show was also real harsh on women who actually had their shit together. Reply Parent Thread Link but the gif is funny Reply Parent Thread Link what show is it? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link This is gross as hell, there's no reason to bring a real person into your sick little fantasy art ahow Reply Thread Link I know taste is subjective but some of the shit that passes for art I'm just like.........how? Reply Thread Link aw hell no Reply Thread Link hkn haven: the art exhibit Reply Thread Link Lmao mte Reply Parent Thread Link ...holy shit. HOW IS THIS ART?! Reply Thread Link "He chose her "partially" due to her affair scandal with Rupert Sanders, and the show is in fact called Snow White and the Huntsman." Her lasting legacy, lol Reply Thread Link who previously made controversial nude statues of Emma Watson What. I feel like this guy is just a real creep who has violent sex fantasies about these actresses. Why else would he be so interested in men stalking, sexualizing and killing young women. And here I thought the Cumberbatch chocolate statue was creepy... Reply Thread Link yup, this is some next level shit Reply Parent Thread Link I buy it. He'd rather actually be doing this but he can't so he'll take a more socially acceptable route and call it art. Reply Parent Thread Link I used to be an ~artiste type of person but the more art people I met the more I was convinced most of them just want to bring thrir inside to the outside. I usually like modern art, what I hate sbout it is that more and more modern artists think they can't get criticized. They do heinous shit and want a prize for it because "ohh disruptive and provocative". The stand-up comedians of the artist community, tbh. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link exactly Reply Parent Thread Link Sounds like an exploitative asshole. That last pic is like... why I can't be fucked making a post because every time I try they just get rejected lmao but someone should make a post about KStew potentially fucking Soko. Reply Thread Link The mods really need to stop rejecting so many posts. It's like they want ONTD to die. Reply Parent Thread Link That car pic is fucking beyond all. Considering this art is ridiculous. Reply Thread Link I guess provocative art? Reply Thread Link Edgy art school assignment teas. Reply Thread Link The internal unrest in South-East Turkey that started following the June 7th, 2015 general elections continue to threathen Turkeys energy security. The Turkish government (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi-Justice and Development Party) is struggling to ensure the safety of the countrys border with both Syria and Iraq, which covers a total distance of about 1300km. As a result of the fighting that started between Turkish security forces and the PKK after the June 7th elections, since then 200 Turkish security forces and more than 3000 PKK militants died. Due to the continuation of the fighting and the implementation of a curfew from time to time in the region, the only official information is provided by the Turkish government and is seen as unreliable, yet government officials do not allow a neutral institution to enter into the conflict zone. Turkish President Erdogan, while starting a war against the PKK in South-Eastern Turkey, maintains a good relationship with KRG leader Barzani who is also seen as a leader by Kurds living in Turkey. As a result of the bilateral relations between Erdogan and Barzani, the KRG was able to build an additional pipeline to sell Kurdish oil via Turkish territory. Though for a long time Kurdish oil was sold from Turkeys Ceyhan port unlawfully, Kurdish oil has now begun to sell labelled as Iraqi oil through Turkey thanks to an agreement between the Iraqi government and the KRGs Erbil government at the end of 2014. Due to low oil prices and a federal budget conflict with Bagdad, Erbil slogs away to pay salaries of Peshmerga-Kurdish security forces who are fighting against ISIS. Related: Oil Prices Steady After Rising 40% in Recent Weeks Oil income , which is the most important source of income for the KRG has been interrupted by the PKK who launched a new series of attacks on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline in Turkish territory, cutting off the oil flow from the KRG fields to Turkish ports. The PKK considers Barzanis support of Erdogan through energy agreements a betrayal of the Kurdish people. On the one hand, Ankara is fighting against the PKK in South-East Turkey and while experiencing international problems because of the ISIS and Syria crisis. On the other hand, Ankara commenced the process of tendering for construction of the Sirnak Natural Gas Pipeline, which is planned to integrate the natural gas of Iraqi Kurdistan into the Turkish national gas pipeline network. Nevertheless, the PKK already declared that the organization is against building a new natural gas pipeline between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. Related: Court Decision Could Accelerate Oil And Gas Bankruptcies The PKK not only occasionally organizes attacks on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline but also on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (oil), Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (natural gas) and Turkey-Iran pipeline (natural gas). However, the PKKs current main target is the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. In the meantime, according to a report from the Turkish General Staff, the PKK is getting prepared for uprisings and attacks not only in the southeast of Turkey but also in big cities like Istanbul and Ankara. In terms of Turkish energy security, it is highly possible that the PKK will accelerate attacks on pipelines, particularly on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. Contrary to popular belief, the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline will not only be able to export Iraqi oil, it will also be extremely important for Turkey's energy security. Turkey has been purchasing Iraqi oil for many years and is now dependent on Iraq for 30 percent of its oil supply. According to EMRA reports, Turkeys Energy Market Regulatory Authority- Turkey imported 3,2 million tons of Iraqi oil between October and December in 2015, while only importing 1,36 million tons from Iran and 1,31 million tons from Russian over the same period. Related: Oil Price Crash Was Not Saudi Arabias Fault Hence, if the PKK blow up the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in the upcoming spring and summer months, Turkeys imports of Iraqi oil will also be cut. Turkey has increased its imports of Russian oil, which was most probably contracted before the Russian warplane was shot down on November 24th, 2015. In addition to Russia, Iran is also a significant Turkish oil supplier. Moscow would benefit from the PKK attacks to pipelines in Turkey. Considering the Iran-Iraq-Russian axis against ISIS, Russia may pressure Iran to not to increase oil exports to Turkey. In summary, Turkey faces energy security threats not only internally, in the form of the PKK, but also externally as its four neighbors look to capitalize on the instability. By Tugce Varol for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The Nigerian Senate has backed plans by Oil Minister Ibe Kachikwu to split the Nigerian National Oil Company into as many as 30 independent companies. The announcement comes after a short but severe strike by unions, which pretty much paralyzed the industry for two days. Still, the question of whether 30 different companies will take better care of Nigerian oil extraction, distribution, and marketing, remains. Kachikwu, who also heads the NNPC, announced the planned split last week as a way of dealing with corruption and inefficiency at the company, which was costing it an estimated $30 million a month. The 30 companies will be divided into five segments: downstream, upstream, gas and power, ventures, and corporate planning and services. Related: Why Saudi Arabia Has No Intention To End The Oil Glut Initially, the announcement caused opposition from legislators, some of whom took it to mean that Kachikwu was transforming the state company into a private one on his own, which would have been a breach of the NNPC Act that established the company in 1977. A committee hearing followed, where the minister explained the company was not being split, rather it was merely being restructured. This apparently convinced many legislators that all was legal. Some, however, maintain that Kachikwus actions contravene the NNPC Act, since he failed to consult the board of directors of the company. The announcement also caused chaos among NNPC employees who went on strike Tuesday, worried that the restructuring would mean job cuts. Talks with the government followed, and the strike was called off yesterdayone more stakeholder in the matter convinced that the minister is doing the right thing. Related: Nigerian Pipeline Bombed, Knocking Off 300,000 Barrels Per Day Kachikwu has been gaining trust since he took the helm of the NNPC last year: the company, which was at the time in the red with a loss of around $800 million, has narrowed the loss down to $15 million as of January this year, according to the minister. He has pledged to make it profitable againand soonwhich explains the rush with the restructuring. Whats more important, however, is that Kachikwu has vowed to review and where necessary, change production-sharing agreements plus the so-called crude oil swaps, which are a breeding ground for corruption. They are, however, not the only breeding ground for illegal practices, and substituting them with direct-sale-direct purchase agreements will be only part of what needs to be done to ensure transparency. Related: Iran Slowly But Steadily Increasing Oil Market Share While Kachikwu seems to maintain that splitting the company will improve accountability and transparency, the move can also be seen as actually making both these worse, as it will be much more difficult to control the separate entities and make sure they are not up to the old NNPC ways. Stronger oversight measures and a working system of controls are needed to make the good intentions work. In other words, the problem with NNPC remains, despite the buzz created by Kachikwus announcement, and it is a big problem, since oil contributes over 90 percent of Nigerias export income and accounts for over two-thirds of the budget income. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: "Bar Month" at OnMilwaukee is back for another round, brought to you by Great Northern Distilling: grain to glass spirits, handmade in Wisconsin. The whole month of March, we're serving up intoxicatingly fun articles on bars and clubs including guides, the latest trends, bar reviews, the results of our Best of Bars readers poll and more. Grab a designated driver and dive in! Elizabeth Kujawa always wanted to own a bar and as a salesperson for Miller Brewing, she spent a lot of time in drinking establishments around the state. "I was always looking," says Kujawa. One day, Kujawa found out that Mike Pelsey was interested in selling the cream city brick building he owned that housed the popular party bar Timers on the ground floor. "I knew that was it," she says. "I knew that was home." Pelsey was Kujawas largest Miller account, so the two already had a good rapport. "He was Millers number one account in Milwaukee for 10 years. Mike was a Miller idol," says Kujawa. However, when Kujawa offered him $750,000 for the building and business it was priced at $999,999 he "respectfully declined." This was in February 2007, but unexpectedly, at the end of the summer that same year, Pelsey counter-offered Kujawas bid with $675,000. "He wanted someone who would not sell it, who would respect it," says Kujawa. "I am only the third owner ever." Technically, multiple members of one family owned the building for many years, then Pelsey, then Kujawa. The building, located at 739 S. 1st St. in Walker's Point, was built in 1880 and the bar originally opened in 1904. The ornate Brunswick back bar came, according to word of mouth, from elsewhere on the South Side via a team of horses. Kujawa lives on the second floor and calls the space on the third floor "the bordello." "There are still numbers over the bedrooms," she says. Pelsey asked Kujawa to change the name of the bar, and so she originally called it The Generals because friends gave her "The General" as a nickname. "If I were smart, I would have called it Two Timers, but I didnt think of that until it was too late," she says. The first name, however, didnt work. It confused people and business started to slag. "Straight thought we were gay; gay thought we were straight," says Kujawa. "I had an identity crisis." Kujawa decided to make stronger decisions and make her message more obvious. Even as an out lesbian, Kujawa knew she did not want to open a lesbian bar. "I knew I was going after the boys. Most of them are educated, have money, no kids and they like to drink," she says. "And after all, Im in the heart of the gayborhood." She went on gaycities.com and researched the name of other gay bars around the world. Nothing jumped out at her, but she did notice a number of bars called "Dicks" and she got an idea. She decided to change the spelling to D.I.X. because of the correlation with Roman Numerals DIX is 509 in Roman numerals. Historically, Roman men often had male lovers before they got married to women. Women, gay and straight, are welcome at D.I.X. and many hang out often. Dani Carstens has been a regular for four years and was recently celebrating her birthday at D.I.X. "This is a great place," says Carstens. "I always feel super welcome." Kujawa likes to point out that the womens bathroom at D.I.X. is always in tip-top condition and she stocks no fewer than eight rolls of toilet paper at all times. "And always two rolls in the men's room," she says. The first three years of ownership were tough for Kujawa; she had spent her life savings on the bar and it struggled to find a niche after years of being Timers, the place where people got drunk and danced on tables. (People do still dance on the tables as homage to Timers, Kujawa says.) However, hard work, self-confidence, a great staff and a stronger marketing message paid off and today Kujawa is successful and happy in her life and career. The Walker's Point community, from politicians to other bar owners to customers, have been very supportive in a neighborhood that is expanding very quickly. "Theres always going to be gay bars, just like there are always going to be country bars," she says. "But what I love about this bar is that people in here really care about other people. We really do. If you walk in here alone, you will not walk out of here without knowing someone's name." D.I.X. is open seven nights a week, with drag shows and screening of RuPaul's Drag Race every Monday and other events throughout the week and on weekends. This Saturday, D.I.X. will host a Jem Jam Glow Party. "Like" the Facebook page to stay in the loop of all events at D.I.X. Michigan tells plutocrat mass media and pollsters to just stop talking about Clinton winning Maybe the historic Michigan primary will cause people to tune out the insistent mass-media megaphone that keeps sounding the falsehood that Sanders can't win. "Myth of inevitability" propaganda, along with lies about Sanders' record (e.g., auto bailouts, health-care finance), seem to be Clinton's primary campaign strategy. No wonder only 58% of Michigan Democrats consider her honest. The fact is that where it counts, in the blue and purple states, outside the South, Sanders has either won landslides or at least fought Clinton -- with her far superior SuperPAC resources for buying large media markets like Detroit and Boston, as well as in Nevada -- to a virtual draw. A week after Super Tuesday Clinton has completed her sweep of the red-state South that should be irrelevant, because it will predictably make no contribution at all to a Democratic electoral-college victory in November. At the same time Sanders dramatically refuted the polls (including the now 99% opinionated 538) that overlook the role of independents. He turned an essential corner with a slim 1.5% margin of victory over Clinton in Michigan. Sanders generously and properly calls this a draw because delegates are awarded proportionately. Clinton won Detroit Metro -- 60% of Wayne (40% black), 51% of Oakland (15% black) and 48% of McComb (8% black), the three largest counties in the state that have about 100,000 voters or more. Clinton also won 50% in Genesee County (20% black) (Flint), which cast about half that number of votes. Sanders won pretty much everywhere else in the state. The media treats Mississippi and Michigan as offsetting primary victories. They are not. That "she won Mississippi by a huge margin" is irrelevant, or should be; quintessentially blue-state Michigan is epoch-changing. "Rotten-borough" Delegates In a separate article I have argued that the Clinton "victory" awarded to her by the mass media on the basis of her primary results in the red-state South, starting in South Carolina and ending now in Mississippi, is an illusion created by four or five undemocratic devices that should be corrected, or compensated for, by DNC rule changes. One of those devices is the "rotten borough." This term was originally used to describe the royally-rigged English voting system that founders like Thomas Paine ridiculed as part of the corrupt system that they revolted against. It applies to any depopulated election district that retains its original representation and voting strength although hardly anyone lives there any more. The primary results in Mississippi and Michigan demonstrate how rotten-borough corruption works. The electoral college determines who will be President, not individual Democratic voters who are disenfranchised by red-state winner-take-all presidential-election laws. No longer are any Democratic electors living in these red states like Mississippi. In the Democratic nominating convention, blue and purple states need to select a candidate who can win blue- and purple-state electors. Red states have no proper role to play in this process. Red-state electors will be voting against the Democratic nominee in the electoral college. Under what theory, then, are rotten-borough delegates authorized to choose a blue-state nominee? Voting red-state delegates allow the plutocratic candidate and her plutocratic mass-media supporters the opportunity to propagandize that everyone should just stay home from the primaries because Clinton is going to win anyway based on her "rotten-borough" results. In a fair run-off system those results would be considered nothing more than straw polls. That is the system that the Sanders campaign should be demanding of the DNC. Others argue from the fact that Super Tuesday is deliberately frontloaded with red states that it distorts the apparent relative strength of the candidates and thereby favors plutocrats by weakening the morale of the opposition. It is said: "The idea was to crush any liberal candidate in those states ... so their funding would dry up and their campaigns would die early in the primary season." Democrats in red states are not very well informed by local media about Democratic politics, and therefore are more easily propagandized than are blue-state residents by plutocratic money and its control of the national mass media. Although this result is deliberate, and this argument also tends to delegitimize the red-state Super Tuesday results, including South Carolina and Mississippi, it leaves any principled remedy to future rescheduling. The argument made here is not about the timing of the red-state primaries, but their illegitimacy for purposes of acquiring voting strength in the nominating convention. The rotten-borough delegate system allows states empty for a generation, or more, of any Democratic electoral votes to nevertheless share in the power of nominating the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate who, as a matter of fact, will only win by carrying a coalition of blue and purple states. "Rotten-borough" voting by red-state delegates is one of several corrupt rules that the Democratic Party uses to throw the nomination to the candidate of plutocrats. It is undemocratic and arguably also unconstitutional, because discriminatory against blue- and purple-state delegates. Excluding these "rotten-borough" states from the scorecard, the current count is that Sanders has won four blue states by landslides, has scored virtual ties in the important blue states of Massachusetts and Michigan, and has a 1-1 record in purple states, with two more virtual ties in purple Nevada and Iowa. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). See the original here Of all the many disturbing things about Donald Trump, his glorification of political violence may be the worst. Again and again, he has encouraged his followers to respond to peaceful protests with brutal force. The Intercept (3/11/16) had a good compilation of Trump's encouragement of attacks against those who dare to speak out against him: "See, in the good old days this doesn't happen, because they used to treat them very, very rough. And when they protested once, you know, they would not do it again so easily... They get away with murder because we've become weak." "I love the old days -- you know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks." "You see, in the good old days, law enforcement acted a lot quicker than this, a lot quicker. In the good old days, they'd rip him out of that seat so fast. But today, everybody's politically correct. Our country's going to hell with being politically correct." Rachel Maddow on MSNBC (3/11/16) presented a video compilation of Trump's routine incitement to violence. And Trump's followers are clearly listening to their leader's exhortations. Slate publishes a running list of violent events at Trump rallies -- including attacks on journalists as well as protesters. After one protester was punched, kicked and reportedly choked at a November 2015 rally in Birmingham, Alabama, Trump's response was, "Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing." One Trump supporter who viciously elbowed a African-American protester in the face -- and was later indicted for the assault -- boasted to Inside Edition (3/10/16), "The next time we see him, we might have to kill him." The idea that a political movement should respond to criticism with violent attacks is not compatible with a democratic society. There's no incongruity in Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's endorsement of Trump; what Trump is celebrating is the Klan's strategy of suppressing dissent through terror. When peaceful protests are met with violence, as they have been again and again at Trump's mass meetings, protesters have a choice between giving in to intimidation and staying away, or showing up in numbers large enough so that they cannot be suppressed. Last night, in Chicago, activists made the latter choice. It was the right thing to do for democracy. Oregon Senate Republicans Salem, Ore. Senate Republicans issued the following statement following the signing of SB 1547, an expensive new renewable energy mandate, by Governor Kate Brown in Portland yesterday: Governor Brown gave her stamp of approval to a new renewable energy mandate that will cost residential electricity customers in Oregon $190 more each year until 2040, said Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli (R-John Day). The catch: this so-called Coal to Clean plan will not reduce carbon emissions in Oregon. Oregon families cannot afford more expensive utility bills. This mandate lines the pockets of the green energy industry at the expense of working Oregonians who get nothing in return. We asked Governor Brown to wait until next year when we could craft a plan that reduces emissions and protects ratepayers, but today she showed us where her loyalties lie. Stratfor's founder George Friedman has recently claimed that the world should get ready for a major 21st century war that will most likely break out in Eastern Europe, the Middle East or Asia. But experts have taken these predictions with a pinch of salt, citing ulterior motives behind the "Shadow CIA's" forecasts. "I don't know what he is thinking. He's been consistently wrong. I don't know why anyone would listen to Stratfor," author, geopolitical analyst and journalist Ryan Dawson told Radio Sputnik in an exclusive interview. Stratfor analysts "didn't see Libya coming, they didn't see Syria coming. They thought there might be a war with Iran."The expert dismissed Stratfor's predictions as a form of "saber-rattling" and "boogeyman scare tactics." For instance, the group, in his opinion, is trying to scare China and North Korea and provoke an arms race by saying that Japan would rise as a maritime power."It is just a way to create a Cold War in that part of the world so that both use each other to build up their navies," Dawson explained. These predictions justify military spending and "that's all it's for." There is "absolutely no chance" that a war would break out between China and Japan, because their economies are too intertwined.Friedman also asserted that Poland and Russia could clash since the former is one of the emerging powers and the latter is supposedly declining. "I just have to laugh at that. That's not going to happen," Dawson noted."Poland is going nowhere. Russia is not going to collapse. And there is definitely not going to be a war with Japan. This is ridiculous. No one should be paying attention to these people," he said laughing. Stratfor analysts "have been wrong over and over again."For his part, political scientist Alexey Martynov maintains that Stratfor's founder is intentionally exaggerating current trends. This approach seems to point to the fact that the think tank is having financial troubles."Stratfor is a private firm, which is trying to sell its predictions to major international corporations, business communities and even some small states that are ready to pay for this kind of analytics. They act as if they were part of the US intelligence agencies. Of course, they are not," he told Radio Sputnik.Friedman is trying to "scare those, who are ready to pay for their scribblings," he added.Source: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160311/1036122276/stratfor-friedman-predictions.html "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you." --Ford Madox Ford PM,COAS paid visit to Roza-e-Rasool MEDINA Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Shareef on Friday arrived in Madina to pay their respects at Roza-e-Rasool (Peace Be Upon Him). On his arrival at Madina Airport, the prime minister was received by Madinas Deputy Governor Abdul Mohsin al Muneef. Nawaz Sharif and Gen Sharif offered prayer in Masjid-e-Nabawi, before departing for Pakistan. They were also accompanied by Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi. Earlier, they attended the closing parade of North Thunder Saudi military exercises on Friday while Pakistani fighter jets and Special Services Group (SSG) troops also performed in the exercises. Ending parade of Saudi Arabias Thunder of North military exercise was held in King Khalid City. Along with the prime minister, the army chief and Saudi rulers, leaders of 21 other countries also attended the parade. World Peace Ambassador, Dr. Clyde Rivers - Peace and Humanity International Blog is created to help protect the image of God in people and create peace as we help humanity solve problems. We strive to bring recognition to the top peacemakers and humanitarians in the world. It is very important to acknowledge those that are working to keep peace in the world. Comments and timely issues or random thoughts on Dogs, Cats and other Pets. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve speaks at George Washington University in Washington, DC, March 11, 2016, during a discussion on fighting terrorism. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve voiced support Friday for President Barack Obama's administration in its efforts to get Apple to unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino attackers. "I completely understand the US administration's concerns, which I share," Cazeneuve said during a talk on counterterrorism at George Washington University. The FBI is pressing Apple to develop a system that would allow the law enforcement agency to break into the suspect's locked iPhone, a demand the tech company claims would make all its devices vulnerable, including to criminals and dictatorships. The French minister expressed hope that a solution would be found with all tech giants. "I don't think it's necessary to wrestle" with Apple and other companies that provide encryption because "they have an interest to be our partners," Cazeneuve said. "The digital ecosystem, that's democracy. If democracy cannot defend itself" against violent extremists, "the ecosystem falls apart," he added. "The citizens who today tell us 'privacy' and 'freedom' will tomorrow ask us 'but what did you do to protect us'" from new devastating attacks, Cazeneuve said. He pressed for procedures under a judge's authority to access encrypted content. Cazeneuve is due to meet with Obama's Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. He is also expected in New York to meet with city police where he is expected to discuss the resilience of major cities hit by large-scale attacks, according to his aides. Explore further Judge sides with Apple in NY drug probe iPhone case 2016 AFP NASA researcher Ryan Walker (left) downloads data from a GPS station he and Christine Dow installed on the Nansen Ice Shelf two weeks prior. Credit: NASA/Christine Dow Ice shelves, the floating extensions of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, are not simply resting on the ocean waters: they rise, fall and bend with the tides. Ultimately, these oceanic motions impact the flow of ice coming from the glaciers that these ice shelves buttress. Ryan Walker and Christine Dow, researchers with the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, recently spent more than a month doing fieldwork in Antarctica to study the influence of tidal movements on a small, little-studied ice shelf. The NASA scientists worked with personnel from the Korea Polar Research Institute to install instruments on the Nansen Ice Shelf, a roughly 30-mile-long ice shelf sticking out from the coast of Antarctica's Victoria Land. The ice shelf is near the new South Korean Jang Bogo Station, where Walker and Dow stayed during their field campaign. "Nansen is a smaller ice shelf but we're hoping that it's representative of many of the smaller ice shelves that ring Antarctica," Walker said. "We also hope that the techniques that we're testing out in this campaign can be used in the future on larger ice shelves." "Ice shelves are very important for holding back ice flow behind them because what they're essentially doing is acting as a plug; as soon as you remove them, there's nothing there preventing the ice mass from moving quickly down," Dow said. "It's a particular worry at the moment that the ice shelves around Antarctica are going to break up, and we're going to see an unprecedented speed-up in the ice coming from the center of the ice sheet." Walker and Dow's instruments consisted of five GPS stations to measure the vertical and horizontal motion of the ice shelf, and two tilt meters, which are sensors that record subtle changes in the angle of the ice shelf as it bends with the ocean tides. They installed the GPS stations in the middle section of the ice shelf, where ice floats freely on ocean water, whereas the tilt meters were mounted in the grounding line area, or the boundary between the ice resting on land and the floating ice. Despite being only a five-minute helicopter ride apart, the two field sites were very different. "The ice shelf was all bare blue ice, with no snow on top of it and a fair amount of ridging. Those areas, because they're flat, they're very exposed - the wind coming out from the continent can be extremely strong in there and even on a relatively sunny day it can become very cold out there very quickly," Walker said. "The site where we put the tilt meters was in a small bay with mountain ridges on either side, with a pretty fair amount of snow. Absolutely the most beautiful place I've ever been to. We were completely sheltered from the winds by the mountains and it was a really sunny day - we wound up working with our jackets off because it was actually quite warm." Both Walker and Dow are ice sheet modelers; they create computer simulations of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets to project how the ice will flow in the next decades and centuries and contribute to sea level rise. Walker will incorporate the GPS and tilt sensor measurements collected in Antarctica into his model of changes in ice shelf motion to further study how ocean tides both bend ice shelves vertically and affect the flow of ice toward the ocean. "Examining how the ice shelf responds to tides helps us get at the dynamics of how the ice flows and we're hoping will help with future computer simulations, in particular of where the grounding zone is," Walker said. Pinpointing grounding lines is key to being able to observe how glaciers evolve, because changes in the grounding line can lead to rapid changes in ice flow. The two researchers say that observing directly what an ice shelf looks like will help them with their modeling. "If you're going to be making a model of the system, you want to know everything that you can about it," Walker said. "Actually seeing it gives you a bit more of a feeling for what sort of assumptions you can make, which things are essential and which things are oversimplifications." Dow's work focuses on how lakes form underneath the ice sheet and how they impact the flow of the ice sheet. She joined Walker in his field trip primarily to help with installing the instruments, but since she is also working with South Korean researchers in modeling subglacial lakes in an area near the Nansen Ice Shelf, she also wanted to see the place firsthand. This was Walker and Dow's first collaboration with the Korea Polar Research Institute, which they will continue over the next few years. Explore further Antarctic ice safety band at risk President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks at the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW), Friday, March 11, 2016, at the Center for Performing Arts in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) President Barack Obama is siding with law enforcement in the debate pitting encryption and personal privacy against national security, arguing that authorities must be able to access data held on electronic devices because the "dangers are real." Appearing Friday at an annual tech festival in the Texas capital, Obama delivered his most extensive comments to date on an issue currently being played out in federal court. Apple, one of the world's largest technology companies, is challenging the government's request that it help the FBI access data on a cellphone that was used in the San Bernardino, California, attack that killed 14 people. The issue has roiled the tech industry and divided Obama's advisers, but the president appeared to side with law enforcement despite also saying the matter would not be settled by adopting an "absolutist view." Obama restated his commitment to strong encryption but also raised the question of how would authorities catch child pornographers or disrupt terrorist plots if smartphones and other electronic devices are designed in ways that keep the data on them locked away forever. "My conclusion so far is that you cannot take an absolutist view on this," Obama said. "So if your argument is strong encryption, no matter what, and we can and should, in fact, create black boxes, then that I think does not strike the kind of balance that we have lived with for 200, 300 years. President Barack Obama waves to the audience after taking part in a South by Southwest Interactive, Friday, March 11, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) "And it's fetishizing our phones above every other value. And that can't be the right answer," he said. At the end of a nearly hourlong, question-and-answer session with Evan Smith, CEO and editor in chief of The Texas Tribune, Smith asked the president "where do you come down" on the privacy versus security debate. He was not asked to comment on specifics of the dispute with Apple. Obama said government shouldn't be able to "just willy nilly" access smartphones that are full of very personal data. But at the same time, while asserting that he's "way on the civil liberties side," Obama said "there has to be some concession" to be able to get the information in certain cases. President Barack Obama, center, waves to members of the audience after answering question from Evan Smith, left, CEO / Editor in Chief of The Texas Tribune, at the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) at the Center for Performing Arts in Austin, Texas, Friday, March 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) "I am not interested in overthrowing the values that have made us an exceptional and great nation simply for expediency," Obama added. "But the dangers are real. Maintaining law and order and a civilized society is important. Protecting our kids is important." Apple and the federal government are embroiled in a legal fight over Apple's refusal to help the FBI access the iPhone used in San Bernardino. The FBI has been unable on its own to unlock the phone and wants Apple to create a program specifically for that phone to help the bureau get to the data on it. But Apple has refused, and says that to do what the government is asking would set a terrible precedent. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has sharply questioned FBI Director James Comey during congressional hearings on the matter, released a statement in which he said Obama's comments showed his "fundamental lack of understanding of the tech community, the complexities of encryption and the importance of privacy to our safety in an increasingly digital world." President Barack Obama places his taco order with Torchy's Tacos owner Aaron Sego, right, during an unannounced stop at Torchy's Tacos, Friday, March 11, 2016, in Austin, Texas. Obama traveled to Austin, to speak at South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) and attend two Democratic National Committee fundraisers. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Issa said the solution, or key, that the government wants Apple to create could eventually compromised. "There's just no way to create a special key for government that couldn't also be taken advantage of by the Russians, the Chinese or others who want access to the sensitive information we all carry in our pockets every day," Issa said. Obama used his appearance at the decades-old festival to encourage the audience of tech enthusiasts to step forward and use their skills and imagination to "tackle big problems in new ways." He said the administration already is using technology to make people's lives better, and cited as an example the streamlining of federal applications. Offering up a problem in need of a solution, he urged industry leaders and entrepreneurs to use technology to help increase voter participation. "The reason I'm here, really, is to recruit all of you. It's to say to you, as I'm about to leave office, how can we start coming up with new platforms and new ideas, new approaches across disciplines and across skill sets, to solve some of the big problems that we're facing today." South by Southwest Interactive is part of South by Southwest, a movie, music and interactive media festival that has been held in Austin for the past 30 years. Obama's appearance was the first at the festival by a sitting U.S. president. 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. In this natural color Landsat OLI image, long sediment plumes extend from the wreck sites of the SS Sansip and SS Samvurn. Insets show elevation models of the wrecks on the seafloor. Credit: NASA/USGS Landsat image/Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory An estimated 3 million shipwrecks are scattered across the planet's oceans. Most maritime mishaps take place close to shore where hazards to navigationsuch as rocks, reefs, other submerged objects and vessel congestionare abundant. While there is a romantic association of shipwrecks and buried treasure, it is desirable to know where they are located for many other practical reasons. The ships may be of historical significance or, if the hard substrate of the ship has created a reef, of ecological significance. Modern-era shipwrecks are also commonly sources of pollution, leaking onboard fuel and corroded heavy metals. Nearshore shipwrecks can be navigational hazards themselves. Researchers have found that shipwrecks near the coast can leave sediment plumes at the sea's surface that help reveal their location. Using data from the NASA/USGS Landsat 8 satellite, researchers have detected plumes extending as far as 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles) downstream from shallow shipwreck sites. This discovery demonstrates for the first time how Landsat and Landsat-like satellites may be used to locate the watery graves of coastal shipwrecks. A quarter of all shipwrecks may rest in the North Atlantic. In the narrow southern end of the North Sea, where the English coast is only 100 miles from the shores of Belgium and the Netherlands, World War II-era shipwrecks are plentiful. In this area, mines, submarines, other submersibles and warships targeted cargo ships sailing between Allied countries and Dutch and Belgian ports. The potential negative environmental impacts of these modern-era shipwrecks are substantial enough that the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly has recommended they be mapped and monitored. Elevation models show the SS Sansip (left) and the SS Samvurn (right) as imaged by a multibeam echosounder. Both of these ships leave sediment plumes detectable by Landsat 8 during ebb and flood tides. Credit: Matthias Baeye et al While airborne lidar (which uses light pulses to measure distance) can be used to detect shipwrecks close to shore and multibeam echosounders and other sound-based methods can be used anywhere deep enough for a survey vessel to sail, the former method requires clear water and cost prohibits both methods from being used to conduct exhaustive coastal surveys. A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science by authors Matthias Baeye and Michael Fettweis, from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences; Rory Quinn from Ulster University in Northern Ireland; and Samuel Deleu from Flemish Hydrography, Agency for Maritime and Coastal Services, aims to change things. The authors have found a way to use freely available Landsat satellite data to detect shipwrecks in sediment-laden coastal waters. Their study, conducted in a coastal area off of the Belgium port of Zeebrugge, relied on a detailed multibeam echosounder survey of wreck sites, previously conducted by the Flemish government. This part of the Belgian coast is strewn with shipwrecks, in often sediment-laden waters. The researchers started with the known location of four fully submerged shipwrecks in their study site: the SS Sansip, which the authors explain was a 135 m (443 foot) U.S. Liberty ship that sank after striking a mine in December 1944; the SS Samvurn, a similar ship that met the same fate the very next month; as well as the SS Nippon, a ship that sank after a maritime collision in 1938; and the SS Neutron, a small 51 m (167 foot) steel cargo vessel that fell victim to an uncharted navigation hazard, presumed to be the SS Sansip. The SS Marad, a U.S. Liberty cargo ship at sea, steams along between 1941-42. Liberty ships were an essential part of the U.S. wartime merchant fleet during World War II. Over 2,700 Liberty ships were produced in five years. The SS Sansip was a U.S. Liberty ship and the SS Samvurn had similar dimensions. Credit: U.S. Library of Congress Using 21 Landsat 8 images and tidal models, the researchers mapped sediment plumes extending from the wreck locations. They found that the two ships with substantial portions of their structure unburied created sediment plumes that could be traced downstream during ebb and flood tides. The authors postulate that the exposed structure of these ships created scour pits that then fill with fine sediments (sand, clay, organic matter, etc.) during slack tides (the period of relatively still currents between ebb and flood tides). These scour pits then serve as sediment repositories from which sediments are re-suspended during flood and ebb tides. When these sediments reach the surface, they create their telltale plumes. Uncharted shipwrecks could be located by using the researchers' methodology in reversei.e., mapping sediment plumes during various tidal stages and then following the plumes upstream to their point of origin. The study looked at shipwrecks in waters as deep as 15 m (50 feet); depth is an essential consideration as the re-suspended sediment plumes must reach the surface to be detected by optical satellites like Landsat. Given that coastal waters are typically shallow, often sediment-laden, and where most shipwrecks occur, this new shipwreck detection method could prove useful for marine archaeologists. The Landsat Program is a series of Earth observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Landsat satellites have been consistently gathering data about our planet since 1972. Landsat 8, designed with many evolutionary advances, launched in 2013. Explore further Researchers say they've likely found Confederate shipwreck It has been far too many years since the Woke theology interlaced its canons within the fabric of the Indoctrination Realm, so it is nigh time to ask: Does this Representative Republic continue, as a functioning society of a self-governed people, by contending with the unusual, self absorbed dictates of the Woke, and their vast array of Victimhood scenarios? Yes, the Religion of Woke must continue; there are so many groups of underprivileged, underserved, a direct result of unrelenting Inequity; they deserve everything. No; the Woke fools must be toppled from their self-anointed pedestal; a functioning society of a good Constitutional people cannot withstand this level of "existential" favoritism as it exists now. In this Wednesday, March 2, 2016 photo provided by NASA, International Space Station (ISS) crew member Scott Kelly of the U.S. reacts after landing near the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. On Friday, March 11, 2016, NASA announced Kelly's retirement, which begins April 1. The 52-year-old Kelly holds the American record for most time in space: 520 days. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP) After spending nearly a year in space, astronaut Scott Kelly is hanging up his spacesuit. NASA announced Kelly's retirement on Friday, less than two weeks after he returned to Earth. He leaves the space agency on April 1. The 52-year-old Kelly spent a U.S.-record 340 days in orbit on the International Space Station to see how the human body holds up for long periods of time in space. His results are being compared to those on the ground from his twin brother, Mark, who is a retired astronaut. Scott Kelly also holds the American record for most time in space: 520 days over four missions. "I look forward to continuing my 30 years of public service in a new role," Kelly, who joined the Navy in 1987, said in a Facebook post. "To continue toward any journey, we must always challenge ourselves to take the next step." During his one-year trip, Kelly posted hundreds of images, mostly of Earth from orbit, on social media. But he also engaged in a little fun, donning a gorilla suit that was a gag gift from his brother and chasing fellow astronauts through the space station in a video. "This year-in-space mission was a profound challenge for all involved, and it gave me a unique perspective and a lot of time to reflect on what my next step should be on our continued journey to help further our capabilities in space and on Earth," Kelly said in a statement issued by NASA. In this Friday, March 4, 2016 file photo, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly speaks during a press conference in Houston. On Friday, March 11, 2016, NASA announced Kelly's retirement, which begins April 1. The 52-year-old Kelly holds the American record for most time in space: 520 days. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan) No specific plans for what's next were announced. But Kelly will continue to undergo periodic medical tests as part of his year-in-space mission, NASA said. "Adjusting in space is easier than adjusting to Earth for me," Kelly said in his first postflight news conference a week ago. Even then he gave a hint of what was to come, saying he doubted he'd fly again for NASA but adding, "I'll never be done with space. I will always be involved." Kelly's departure means the space agency is losing its biggest star, said John Logsdon, a retired space policy professor. In this Friday, Aug. 10, 2007 image made from video provided by NASA, commander Scott Kelly sits in the flight deck of shuttle Endeavour as he prepares to dock with the International Space Station. On Friday, March 11, 2016, NASA announced Kelly's retirement, which begins April 1. The 52-year-old Kelly holds the American record for most time in space: 520 days. (AP Photo/NASA TV) "I'm willing to bet that no one could name another NASA astronaut, anyone not close to the program," Logsdon said. "It clears the way for the next generation of space fliers. There are a few veteran fliers left, but not many." NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a retired astronaut himself, said the space agency and science in general is grateful to Kelly, who he added deserves "meals that don't come in a bag, a cold beer, hot showers, cool autumn breezes, the sounds of birds chirping, the ability to lay his head on an actual pillow and so much more of the pleasures of life." Astronauts who eventually will land on Mars "will be following in the footsteps of one of the finest astronauts in the history of the space program, my friend, Commander Scott Kelly," Bolden said in a statement. In this March 25, 1999 file photo, NASA astronauts Scott, left, and Mark Kelly, who are twins, pose for a picture in front of a mural at Johnson Space Center in Houston. On Friday, March 11, 2016, NASA announced Kelly's retirement, which begins April 1. The 52-year-old Kelly holds the American record for most time in space: 520 days. (AP Photo/Michael Stravato) Kelly returned from the space station on March 2, landing in Kazakhstan with Russia's Mikhail Kornienko, his partner for the one-year mission. The usual space station stint is six months. His re-entry into land living was good and bad. Home in Houston, he dove into his backyard pool still in his blue flight suit, going underwater for the first time in nearly a year. But clothing was a problem. In space, his clothes floated around him and didn't touch his skin. "It's very, very sensitive," he told reporters last week. "It's almost like a burning feeling wherever I like sit or lie or walk." Before leaving orbit, Kelly tweeted: "The journey isn't over. Follow me as I rediscover #Earth!" His Twitter followers have since read about his first steak, first dental appointment, first rain and that dip in the pool. Explore further Image: Last sunrise from a year in space 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. Griffin, Reeves, Rey, and Ross offer progressive alternatives to GOP hopefuls Four Democrats are vying for their party's nomination to the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Richard Burr: Durham businessman Kevin Griffin ; retired Army Capt. Ernest Reeves of Greenville; Spring Lake Mayor Chris Rey ; and former state Rep. Deborah Ross of Raleigh.Ross said when asked why she decided to run.Currently, both of North Carolina's U.S. senators are Republican and the GOP holds a 10-3 edge in the U.S. House delegation.Ross said that after former Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan chose not to run last summer, a number of people encouraged her to run. "So here I am," she said.Rey cites as pluses for his candidacy his experience as a three-term mayor, working on issues with the General Assembly, and his tenure with the Department of Defense.Rey said.Griffin said he's running out of political frustration.Griffin said, adding that now seems to be the perfect time for someone like him to run.Griffin said.Reeves said he is running to represent North Carolinians in communities statewide.Reeves said.Ross became general counsel for GoTriangle - the regional transit agency - after leaving the legislature. Before becoming a member of the House, she was executive director and legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina. She also has taught law at Duke University. She received her bachelor's degree from Brown University and her law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill.Reeves is a graduate of St. Augustine's College and has sought political office before. He ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate two years ago, and ran for Greenville mayor last year.Rey attended East Carolina University and graduated from Walden University. He also graduated from the William and Mary School of Law.Griffin is president and CEO of AVANT Group, a staffing company. He holds two bachelor's degrees from UNC-Greensboro.Griffin says his business experience distinguishes him from his Democratic primary opponents, and that he doesn't have the political baggage of some of his opponents."I spent the last 14 years running my own company, employing people," Griffin said. As a political newcomer, Griffin added,Griffin said he believes the most important issue in the campaign is integrating the large military and veteran presence in North Carolina with employment opportunities and public services. He said he wanted to "marry" job placement programs with job skills that veterans living in North Carolina possess.Griffin also wants to expand mental health services to veterans. One way to do this, he said, is take some beds from VA hospitals in put them in smaller, local hospitals.Griffin said.Reeves said the main issue in the campaign is jobs for American people. He proposes a minimum wage increase to $10.25 in 2017 and to $15 by 2020 as a way of helping the working class.Reeves said.Reeves added that such an increase would come to $120 a week for someone working 40 hours a week.Reeves said his background distinguishes him from his primary opponents.Reeves said.Rey said he stands out from his primary opponents because he can win in November.Rey said.Rey said the top issue in the campaign is the economy and getting people jobs.Rey said.Ross said "economic security and opportunity for every generation" is her top issue in the 2016 campaign.Ross said, adding that the federal Head Start program was important in that endeavor. Federal Title I money for schools, Pell Grants for college students, and reducing student loan debt are also important for the younger generation, she said."For working people, we need to raise the minimum wage," Ross said. She also said women deserve equal pay for equal work.Ross said, adding that is especially true for women who stayed at home while their husbands worked and may not have a pension plan of their own.Ross said her experience separates her from her opponents. "I'm the only one with significant legislative experience and a proven record of getting things done in that environment," she said. Ross said she has been effective working with divided legislatures, and when both Democrats and Republicans had majorities in the General Assembly.While polls show Ross leading among her Democratic rivals, they also show a large number of voters remain undecided.In November, the winner of the March 15 Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican primary - between Burr, Larry Holmquist, Paul Wright, and Greg Brannon - and Libertarian Party nominee Sean Haugh. From: Nancy Wilson < nanygirl233@yahoo.com > Sent: Fri, Mar 11, 2016 10:35 am Subject: Hoping to hear from you soonest Hello dear, How is your day ? Mine is ok over here in CAMBODIA. My name is Nancy Khaingthant (23) single and never married, i am from Myanmar Burma and presently i am residing in the refugee camp here in CAMBODIA as a result of the civil war that was fought in my country. My late father Dr Zaw Khaingthant was chairman managing director Zaw's INDUSTRIAL COMPANY LTD, in Myanmar Burma and he is also the personal adviser to the former head of state before the rebels attacked our house one early morning killing my mother and my father. It was only me that is alive now and i managed to make my way to near by country CAMBODIA where i am living now as a refugee. i am looking for some one who is caring loving and honest with tender hearten. I would like to know more about you. Your likes and dislikes,your hobbies and what you are doing presently. I will tell you more about myself in my next mail. Hoping to hear from you soonest. Yours Nancy. From: Nancy Wilson < nanygirl233@yahoo.com > Sent: Sat, Mar 12, 2016 9:28 am Subject: I would like you to help me to transfer my money to your account. . Dearest, How is your day?. Mine is oK here in CAMBODIA. In this camp we are only allowed to go out only on Mondays and Fridays of the weeks. It's just like one staying in the prison and i hope by Gods grace i will come out here soon. I don't have any brother,sister or relatives now whom i can go to all my relatives ran away in the middle of the war the only person i have now is Rev Marthin Anthony who is the pastor of the (Christ The king Church) here in the camp he has been very nice to me since i came here but i am not living with him rather i am leaving in the women hostel because the camp have two hostels one for men the other for women. i don't have any right or privilege to any thing be it money or whatever because it is against the law of this country. I want to go back to my studies because i only attended my first year before the tragic incident that lead to my being in this situation now. Please listen to this,i have my late father's statement of account and death certificate here with me which i will send to you latter, because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money in a leading bank in Europe which he used my name as the next of kin, the amount in question is $8.6 Million US Dollars. since i am too small to handle this and my present condition here in the camp cannot permit me to do the transfer on my own. So I wouldlike you to help me to transfer mymoney to your account and from it you can send some money for me to get my traveling documents and air ticket to come over to meet with you. I kept this secret to people in the camp here the only person that knows about it is the Reverend because he is like a father to me. So in the light of above i will like you to keep it to yourself very secret and don't tell it to anyone for i am afraid of loosing my life and the money if people gets to know about it. i will want you to promise me that you will not tell any person ? I like honest and understanding people,truthful and a man of vision, truth and hardworking. My favorite language is English and very fluently. Meanwhile i will like you to call me like i said i have a lot to tell you. i will like you to send me your picture Have a nice day and think about me. Awaiting to hear from you soonest Nancy. Date: 31-Aug-2016 9:58 AM Subject: Every thing about me Cc: Dearest, I am more than happy in your reply to my mail this today. How is your day?. Mine is oK here in CAMBODIA. In this camp we are only allowed to go out only on Mondays and Fridays of the weeks. It' s just like one staying in the prison and i hope by Gods grace i will come out here soon. I don' t have any brother,sister or relatives now whom i can go to all my relatives ran away in the middle of the war the only person i have now is Rev Martin Anthony who is the pastor of the (Christ The king Church) here in the camp he has been very nice to me since i came here but i am not living with him rather i am leaving in the women hostel because the camp have two hostels one for men the other for women. i don' t have any right or privilege to any thing be it money or whatever because it is against the law of this country. I want to go back to my studies because i only attended my first year before the tragic incident that lead to my being in this situation now .Please listen to this,i have my late father' s statement of account and death certificate here with me which i will send to you latter,because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money in a leading bank here which he used my name as the next of kin,the amount in question is $8.6 Million US Dollars. since i am too small to handle this and my present condition here in the camp cannot permit me to do the transfer on my own. So i will like you to help me transfer this money to your account and from it you can send some money for me to get my traveling documents and air ticket to come over to meet with you. I kept this secret to people in the camp here the only person that knows about it is the Reverend because he is like a father to me. So in the light of above i will like you to keep it to yourself very secret and don' t tell it to anyone for i am afraid of loosing my life and the money if people gets to know about it. i will want you to promise me that you will not tell any person? I like honest and understanding people,truthful and a man of vision,truth and hardworking. My favorite language is English and very fluently. Meanwhile i will like you to call me like i said i have a lot to tell you. Have a nice day and think about me. Awaiting to hear from you soonest, Nancy. From: " Nancy Khaingthant" < nancykhaingthant@gmail.com Date: 31-Aug-2016 9:58 AMSubject: Every thing about meCc: From: " Nancy Khaingthant" < nancykhaingthant@gmail.com > Date: 31-Aug-2016 6:11 PM Subject: contact the bank now for verification of the existence of the fund as well as the possibility of transferring the money to your account. Cc: My dearest , Again I wish to let you know that the most important thing i needed from you is to help me retrieved back this money been deposited by my late father ,Because my status here is very painful but i have been praying for God to show me the right person who will keep up to all agreement been made before undergoing this transaction and i believe that with you i can achieve this desire of mine.I also wish to let you know that my desire to who so ever will help me retrieved back this money is of the best.i have decided to give to you the contact of the Bank for verification of the existence of the fund of my late father. Below is the bank contact information: ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND Contact Person: Ross McEwan Director : Foreign Operations. Email : inforbs@mail-me.com BELLOW IS THE NAME OF MY LATE FATHER Dr. Zaw Khaingthant Next of kin: Nancy Khaingthant Nationality. Myanmar Account number ( 45008901546 ) Fund reference numbers: WTG584W9557F Please make sure that you enter the account number correctly. Dear, i want you to send a mail to the bank, you have to tell them that you are contacting them on behalf of the fund of Dr. Zaw Khaingthant ,from Myanmar, also tell them that you are representing me as my foreign partner as well as the next of kin to the fund ok, i will also like you to ask them the possibility of transferring,this fund to your position in your country. Moreover, i will need your assistance to manage the money on my behalf since i am too young to handle such money. again I have mapped out 15% of the total sum for your assistance and 5% for any expenses.Please go ahead and make contact with the bank .I will be happy if you contact the them as soon as you receive this letter. I hope to hear good news from you as soon as possible. Please keep every information in regards to this close and secret to your self, put me in your daily prayers.Honey it is very difficult for me to eat food here, so i need your urgent help so that we finish this transfer and i will come to live a better life with you in your country. My dearest i will wait your good news, Nancy. RE:IN OUR EFFORT TO HELP YOU AND YOUR PARTNER, MISS NANCY KHAINGTHANT, Attention sir, Based on your demand to our noble law firm on how to get a letter of affidavit and prepare a power of Attorney for you and your partner, which will give you a power to transfer her late fathers money into your account.Your partner (Miss Nancy Khaingthant), was in contact with our law firm on the issue of the preparation of a power of attorney and affidavit of oat. According to the Banks demand, we also denoted that the affidavit of oat and the power of attorney must be prepared by a Cambodian lawyer. in view of this, our noble law firm wish to bring to your notice that before we can proceed with the service, we demand from you to forward to this law firm, your full contact details as follows, YOUR FULL NAME. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . YOUR HOUSE ADDRESS. . . . . . . . . . . YOUR AGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . YOUR COUNTRY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER. . . . . . . YOUR OCCUPATION/JOB. . . . . . . . . . These will enable us move on with the preparing of the power of attorney and the affidavit of oat. also, i will go to the federal high court to obtain the cost of authentication of the power of attorney and the affidavit of oat before it becomes valid for the transfer, after which our noble law firm will contact you back with the required costs before accepting to render the legal service. Yours sincerely in service, Barrister, Mustapha Hills. Esq (EJB). On 01-Sep-2016 7:38 PM, " Mustapha Hills" < patchambersm@ymail.com > wrote: Date: 01-Sep-2016 10:24 PM Subject: ATTENTION Cc: Attention , Based on how to prepare a power of attorney and affidavit of oat for you and your partner. about the authorization letter and affidavit of oath that will enable you to stand on her behalf to transfer her money to your Account in your country. Prior to my inquires from the bank and high court here in Phnom Penh Cambodia, i was made to understand from the bank that there are four documents required by them before the transfer of the money to your account. 1.A copy of Death certificate of her late father. 2.A copy of His Statement of account.(Which she has already). It is now remaining the other two documents. which is power of attorney and affidavit of oath which will enable the bank to deal with you on behalf of your partner. In view of the above and from my inquires, it will cost the sum of $ 300 dollar (Three hundred dollar) for authentication of power of attorney, $ 470 dollar (Four hundred and seventy dollar) for swearing of the affidavit of oat at the Federal high court here before it becomes valid, $ 200 dollar (Two hundred dollar) for notary stamping at the notary office before it will go out from Cambodia here, and my legal processing fee of $ 200 dollar (Two hundred dollar). Total $ 1,170 dollar (One thousand one hundred and seventy dollar) only to get every thing done. To speed the process as you want it. you are to send these money to me through the western union or Money Gram transfer system. which is the fastest means of sending money also to enable my noble office prepare and validate the power of attorney here in the high court and notary republic respectively. Bellow is the information you will use to send the money which is the name of my secretory. SURNAME : Eng LAST NAME: Sela STATE : Phnom Penh COUNTRY : Cambodia. Call me immediately on phone for the information of the money as you send it or alternatively, send me a direct email as soon as you send the money. Attachment below is my identity for you to know whom you are dealing with. Yours sincerely in service, Barrister, Mustapha Hills. Esq (EJB). . From: " Mustapha Hills" < patchambersm@ymail.com Date: 01-Sep-2016 10:24 PMSubject: ATTENTIONCc: Date: 02-Sep-2016 7:06 PM Subject: Understand me. Cc: Hello dear, Thanks for your mail today. i was very happy reading your mail, thank you also for calling me on phone today. i enjoyed talking to you, only that i couldn' t hear you very well which i believed was due to bad signal. how are you today, fine i guess.listen my dear, if you truly want to help me, you will have to send the money to the lawyer first so that he will proceed with the document' s, at least get them ready before your arrival so that when you now arrive, we can together send them to the bank. after the inquiries i made, i found out that the documents will take some days before they will be ready.so the best thing for you to do is to send the money to the lawyer, let him get the document' s ready first. if you cant do it like that it now means you are not helping me at all.in one of the mails you sent to me, you told me that you have arranged the money already only that you don' t have an international passport. this is not true because no bank will ask for that when you are transferring money from your account to another account or when you are trying to send money to some one.i am ready to live with you as husband and wife if you like because i really will love to marry, live in my own house with my husband, have my own kids. i accepted living with you, making a happy home with you, but you Will have to send the money to the lawyer first before every other thing. if you cant do that it now means there is no trust there and i can now find another alternative. hope you are doing good, bye for now and think about me, Nancy. From: " Nancy Khaingthant" < nancykhaingthant@gmail.com Date: 02-Sep-2016 7:06 PMSubject: Understand me.Cc: If you received a similar letter, please ignore it. Do not answer it. If you do, you will end up on more of the mailing lists used by the criminals behind this fraud. Read more.... For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser Your RSS feed from RSSFWD.com. Update your RSS ... ANOTHER BLOG FROM NEVILLE STEPHENS ON BIBLICAL ESCHATOLOGY. To encourage knowledge of affairs at home and abroad; to cure the spirit of lying which prevails amongst us; to record memorable providences.-Publick Occurrences, September 25, 1690 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. Revelation 1:19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. Revelation 1:19 According to him, interest payment on Ghanas debt stock in 2014 was four times Ghanas oil revenue for that year.He warned government that the country faces massive debt unsustainability if nothing is done to reduce the country's debt to GDP ratio of 70% This is exceedingly worrying as it is tipping the country into the league of nations with a high risk of debt distress,"Osei Kyei Mensah- Bonsu said. According to Mensah-Bonsu, the consequence of this characterization is that it will compromise Ghanas ability to raise further financing from the international finance market. Worse still, he said this will disable the country from servicing and paying its debt. "In 2015, interest payment amounted to more than 9.5 billion, which was more than the debt stock in 2008 towards the end of Kufours term for which debt stock for which both the late President Mills and President John Mahama lampooned the NPP administration," he said. The Head of Policy Unit of ACEP, Dr. Ishmael Ackah, who made the call at a consultative forum on Oil Revenue Management, said properly financing these sectors would help address the challenges of socio-economic disparities and help reduce poverty. He said there was the need for the government to prioritise and increase investment in these areas for long-term benefits and equity. The forum, organised by ACEP, in collaboration with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) was on the theme: "Five years Oil production in Ghana, the Need to Invest in Education, Health and Agriculture". He noted, however, that even though oil revenue played a significant role in the capital budget, it could not solely fund the budgets of Education, Agriculture and Health but it could directly facilitate their growth if more of it was used to supplement the existing budgets. He called for a proper investment plan that had a target with concrete monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure that Ghana got value for money, while there must be determined efforts to use the oil resources to transform these sectors of the economy. The Deputy Chief Executive Officer of ACEP, Mr. Benjamin Boakye, said by the virtue of Ghana being a lower -middle income country, donor support towards the sectors under review had dwindled, hence the need for the Government to put more oil revenue in those sectors. He said it was important that the citizenry participated in discussions on the management of revenue from the oil and gas sector for the country to derive maximum benefits from the resources. Some of the participants suggested that the amount of oil revenue allocated to the Education sector must be channeled to the basic schools to build stronger foundation for Ghanaian students. Others also called for a portion of the amount to be used to support research in the tertiary institutions, and suggested that strict measures be put in place to monitor projects funded with oil revenue for the citizenry to get involved in its usage. He was speaking at a-days stakeholder forum on emerging trends on education in the area on Thursday at Weta Senior High Technical School (WESTEC) at Weta in the Volta Region. Mr Ayagitam said in some instances, it was alleged some male pupils had sought spiritual powers to charm their female colleagues and teachers for intimacy. The forum was convened by John Gatsi Educational Foundation, a private entity fostering improvement in academic standards in the area, through competitive exams and teaching skills update, with support from the National Investment Bank (NIB). He said at Avekordome Basic School, for example, some suspected human teeth were placed on the tables and chairs of some teachers in February this year, after a similar occurrence in November last year. Mr Ayagitam said the teachers, including the head and some pupils, who came into contact with the object were said to have received some electric-like shock waves in their arms, followed later with severe headache, swollen arms and legs and a feeling of coldness and shivering among others. As I am talking to you now the headteacher and other teachers and pupils are sick and everyone, particularly the teachers are scared of staying to work in the area, Mr. Ayigitam said. He said one of the nine communities which feeds the Avekordome school, had withdrawn pupils from the school because in their thinking the school should have been located in their community. Mr Ayagitam said Avekordome community leaders fearing some form of spiritual attack, have started rituals to cleanse the school. He said in that community, some black powder suspected to be spiritual, was sprinkled at the doorsteps of some teachers who punished pupils. The Director said in most cases the suspects had been dismissed and barred from enrollment in any school in the area, while the two men who allegedly supervised the spiritual process were brought before a traditional court and fined GH300.00 and some bottles of liquor. He said a pupil thought to be under some invocation during morning devotion, revealed some of them had put some magical preparations in the food of some teachers. Mr Ayagitam said the boy under spell alleged some food vendors were also involved. The Director said a total of 275 pupils, 114 of them in primary school, became pregnant in the area between 2012 and 2015, with the highest of 78, including 28 in primary occurring last year alone. These issues are endangering our learning environment, and is very worrying, he said. Dr. John Gatsi, Founder-Director of John Gatsi Educational Foundation, expressed happiness for the support, openness and willingness of the Education Directorate to openly discuss challenges for redress, observing that such openness was not available in some areas. Mr Gatsi who is also a lecturer at the Cape Coast University School of Business, called on all stakeholders to come around to address challenges, as the future of the youth and the area depended on education. When the GNA visited Avekordome School at 13:00 hours on Thursday, there were no pupils on campus, except one teacher who was also on the way home. That teacher confirmed the sorcery allegation and said the teachers in the school were seeking transfers. Mr. Young Gyu Lee, Chief Executive Office of Peterpan Restaurant, a Korean chain in Ghana, allegedly used hot pizza to slapped of of his employees, a Cecilia Ampadu. The incident is reported to have occurred on Tuesday when Mr Gyu Lee was reacting after a piece of pizza got burnt. The victim, who was supervisor-on-duty at the time, reported the incident and lodged a complaint at the Airport Police Station. which lead to the arrest of the Mr. Young Gyu Lee. Speaking with Accra-based radio station, Citi FM, the Airport Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Yaw Tetegah, said the police are still actively looking for more witnesses to aid in investigations. We have called for witnesses to help us with the investigations and so far we are charging the gentleman with assault. She says she was slapped with hot pizza and we are investigating the case to establish the fact, he said. The suspect, who is also the Vice President of the Korean Residents Association of Ghana, has been granted bail. Peterpan is a new addition to the restaurant/fast food franchise business in Ghana. Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! The Deputy Health Minister, Dr. Victor Bampoe made this know when he paid a working visit to the facility on Friday. The University of Ghana Medical Center is at 95% completion of civil works for Phase 1. It is envisaged that it will be fully operational before the end of this year. Phase 1 has 650 beds and Phase 2 will add 350 beds to take the total number of beds to 1,000, he said. The Deputy Minister also visited the to the Ridge hospital in the company of the Greater Accra Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Linda Van Otoo. According to him, phase one of the Ridge hospital project is 65% complete and will also be operational by close of year. The Ridge Hospital will have 420 beds and spacious delivery suites, maternity wards, intensive care units and other modern facilities. Phase 2 of the construction works, according to the Deputy Minister will soon commence and that will add 200 more beds and assisted reproduction, interventional cardiology and VIP suites for medical tourists. Both hospitals will, together with the numerous other health facilities being built or refurbished in the Greater Accra region, go a long way to take the pressure of Korle Bu teaching hospital, he said. In a tweet, Mr. Benjamin expressed his appreciation to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for helping with the arrest of the drug lord. David McDermott is reported to have been on the run for about three years from UK security authorities. The National Crime Agency (NCA) in the UK indicated that McDermott is suspected member of a Liverpool-based organised crime group involved in a conspiracy to import and supply cocaine which was seized from a container of frozen Argentinian beef in May 2013 at Tilbury Docks. He was arrested during a joint operation involving officers from the NCA and Ghana's BNI. However, a cross- section of the public have criticized government and government protocol for denigrating journalists by accommodating them in the bucket of tipper truck. Sydney Casely-Hayford, in an interview on Citi FMs Big Issues, described the action as disgusting and disappointing, a sign that government does not respect journalists. He then turned his attention to the journalists who agreed to work from the bucket of the truck saying, The journalists had a choice. They should have boycotted coverage of the event in protest of the inhumane treatment. But they were probably weak- spined to do so. A clear message must be sent to government to treat journalists better than they do. According to Daily Record news, Patrick OHara and his gang invaded the home of his victim and after being seriously battered, the 19-years-old teenager attempted to rip off his trousers and groped his privates. His victim was able to escape sexual assault bravely fighting off Patrick OHaras degrading advances. It was also gathered that Patrick OHara also threaten to kill his victim if he objected. If you dont do the things I say, I will kill you. if you tell anyone about what happened, I will kill you. After they raided the victims home, and seriously battred reports says Patrick OHara crept back into the house alone and subjected him to a prolonged sexual attack. The frail man who weighed just six-and-a-half stone was too embarrassed at the moment of the incident didnt not report the assault immediately to the police, but when he gathered up courage he reported the case. Watch the video here: However, news sources says the UK Police have issued a statement over the video that went viral. A spokesman for British transport police said: We have been made aware of a video on Facebook showing BTP officers detaining a man at St Pancras station on Tuesday, March 8. Officers attended the station following reports from staff of fare evasion, and a man, aged 40 and from Thamesmead, London was subsequently arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH). Meanwhile, from the video, it shows that the Nigerian man kept insisting that he was not a criminal and needed to know his offence and asked why he was being maltreated. He asks the law enforcement officers repeatedly saying, "Why are you treating me this way? I am not a criminal" In a recent report by Daily Post, Arase said that the number of people said to have been killed during the recent clash was over exaggerated though he refused to disclose the actual number. In the words of the IG, I was around, I travelled to Makurdi, I did not see where 300 people were buried. If you kill, you dont just bury; you must take the corpse to the Police station before you bury, we dont have that number of people. He however did not give the official casualty figure." The IG further disclosed that the command had completed plans to unveil the Metro Patrol to check excesses of cattle rustlers around the country. In the past weeks, over 300 people, including children and pregnant women were reportedly killed by the Fulani herdsmen and 7,000 others were said to have been displaced. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports Erediauwa is expected to go through some traditional rites before he assumed the traditional stool of Edaiken of Uselu. The event attracted a large crowd of people, who thronged the palace. Shops and other business outlets were also shut as a mark of honour and solidarity with the crowned prince. The Oba Market and some streets as well as roads housing some traditional shrines were cordon-off by security personnel and manned by colourfully-dressed palace chiefs. The move was to assist Officials of the Federal Road Safety commission (FRSC) and traffic policemen with useful tips to ease human and vehicular movements of persons. The event witnessed women groups adorned in Benin traditional attire, drummers, entertainers, youths, visitors, and palace chiefs. Some commuters and lovers of Benin tradition also struggled to catch a glimpse of the event. Politicians and top government officials, led by Gov. Adams Oshiomhole, defied the scorching sun to await the arrival of Erediauwa. The convoy of the crowned prince in company of some first Class Benin Chiefs and combined security team arrived from his private residence in Benin to the palace at about 2 p.m. Erediauwa, clad in white and red traditional regalia with a pair of dark glasses, immediately after his arrival, had a brief consultation with the palace chiefs. This was followed by the performance of traditional rites at the palace. At about 4pm, Erediauwa rode on a long convoy with Oshiomhole, his deputy, Mr Pius Odubu and other top government officials and palace chiefs to Edaiken palace. This is a precursor to assuming the title of the Oba of Benin. Aliyu-Lere made the disclosure on Friday in a chat with newsmen in Zaria, ``The water treatment plant is going to cost N24 billion and another N20 billion will be spent on expansion before transmission. ``Construction of 10 number service reservoirs of seven million litres each with booster stations will cost us about N16 billion including solid waste management sanitation programme," he said. ``From what we have seen on ground, if it continues like that, we are convinced the contractors will meet the target. ``The expansion will be completed around the middle of next year," he said. He expressed regret that some residents build on water and transmission lines which affected proper reticulation of water in some areas. He said that some residents would experience discomfort during reticulation and change of pipelines especially road users and urged them to be patient with government. He said that about 73 kilometres of excavation for transmission lines and over 600 kilometres of expansion work would be done on the project within Zaria. ``So you can imagine the quantum of earth that would be excavated all around Zaria and its environs. ``This requires a lot of understanding and a great deal of cooperation from the potential consumers, the residents of Zaria and environs. This is contained in a statement by the Public Relations Officer of the agency, Mr Ibrahim Farinloye, and made available to newsmen in Lagos. "A wooden boat capsized at Grinaldi Port close to Tin Can Flyover Bridge, Coconut Bus Stop, Apapa, with 15 passengers on board. "All passengers were rescued alive and only the driver of the boat sustained injury," it stated. It said the incident occurred at about 8.30 p.m. on Friday and that those rescued had gone to their different destinations. Farinloye told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the injured driver refused to be treated, opting to treat himself in a private hospital. Umar told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the media had been able to educate the public on the dangers of smuggling and its negative effects on the economy. He said that the service usually released information to the media as and when due. ``Customs and maritime reporters have symbiotic relationship, the controller said. He urged the media to keep on publicising the laudable achievements of officers and men of the service. ``I am not saying that we do not have bad eggs among officers; balance your reports and also appreciate us when the need be. ``We have corrupt people in all sectors and not that we do not have good officers among us. I can say we have little bad eggs, NAN quotes Umar as saying. He said that there was no way Customs officers could extort money from importers or agents nowadays because cargo clearance had become digital. Umar said that before now, when cargo clearance was operated by analogue, the system encouraged human interface which aggravated corruption. The controller, however, observed that terminal operators had not been releasing their revenue reports. Umar urged agents and shippers (importers and exporters) to always make honest declaration to assist government achieve the 48-hour cargo clearance target. Hajiya Fatima Madugu, the states Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Minna. ``Niger State will be partnering with the Cambridge University in Britain to transform the states education sector, so as to enable us to be where we want to be. ``The first phase will involve a baseline survey, where the number of pupils and teachers as well as number of schools in the state will be captured, in order to know their needs in those schools and address them. ``The second stage has to do with training and retraining of teachers so that they will be able to use modern teaching technologies in teaching our pupils and students. ``Last but not the least is the collaboration with donor agencies for the success of this noble project; let me also add that this partnership will run for three years, she said. Meanwhile, Assemblyman Kassim Alfa, the Chairman of Niger State House of Assemblys Committee on Education, Science and Technology, has pledged the committees support for efforts to revamp the education sector. The man, identified as Liman Muhammad, was arrested in Keteringi village of Bida Local Government area of the state, after a year on the run. Mr Iliyasu Bawa, Senior Special Assistant to Niger governor on Security, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Minna that the suspect had evaded arrest in the two states. Bawa added that the arrest was through a joint effort between the security men and the Miyetti Allah Kautal-Hore, the umbrella body of Fulanis in the country. The governor's aide disclosed that information about the suspect's where about was released to security agents by a woman. We were directed by the Niger state government through the Director General Security that the report of cattle rustling in the state was high. By this directive, we circulated information to various communities and groups in the state to report to us any information on criminal hideouts. On March 9, I received a phone call from a Human Right Activist in Keteringi that a wife of a wanted armed robber from Zamfara state came to him to report that her husband was hiding in Niger state.'' According to him, the man had escaped from Maradun in Zamfara when military personnel raided his home. He also said the umbrella body of Fulanis, confirmed that the suspect ``is a notorious cattle rustler. '' The governor's aide added that after thorough investigation, Muhammad was arrested on Saturday morning at Keteringi and brought to Minna the state capital for questioning. This is contained in a statement issued and signed by the agency's spokesperson, Mr Mitchell Ofoyeju in Lagos According to the statement, those arrested (names withheld), include four Nigerians believed to be joint owners of the said laboratory and four Mexicans, who are methamphetamine production experts, hired as technical partners. "NDLEA has discovered a super methamphetamine laboratory and dislodged a major drug trafficking organisations in the country. ''Officials of the Special Enforcement Team (SET) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) made a significant breakthrough with the discovery of a super laboratory for the illicit production of methamphetamine. The statement quoted the NDLEA Chairman, Mr Muhammad Abdallah as saying that the laboratory had the capacity of producing between 3,000kg and 4,000kg of methamphetamine per production cycle. A significant feature of this laboratory is that, the production process is more technical and sophisticated because it uses the synthesis method of methamphetamine production. ''All the principal actors linked to this illicit act were apprehended in a simultaneous raid on members of the drug syndicate in Lagos, Obosi in Anambra and at the laboratory in Asaba, Delta he said. Abdallah described the operation that led to the arrest of the suspects as a technically undercover assignment, adding that it also led to the dismantling of a drug trafficking organisation. In a technical undercover operation, four Mexicans were arrested in active production inside the super laboratory. ''The cartel first brought two Mexican methamphetamine experts to Nigeria. ''But because of the size of the laboratory, coupled with the volume of work, two additional Mexicans were added. ''Our investigation revealed that a successful test production was done at the laboratory in February 2016. ''The laboratory was raided while the second production cycle was ongoing. ''Items recovered at the laboratory include 1.5kg of finished methamphetamine and 750 litres of liquid methamphetamine. ''Other items found in the laboratory include industrial pressure pots, gas cylinders, gas burners, facial masks and numerous chemicals. ''Also recovered in this operation are Toyota Tundra, Mercedes Benz Jeep ML and a Toyota Corolla car,'' he said. The Agency warned that unless drastic measures were taken against the trend; the rise in super laboratories would put Nigeria on the global spotlight in methamphetamine production. This is because the laboratory operates at an industrial scale with a high yield of 3,000kg to 4,000kgs of methamphetamine per production cycle. ''Nigeria methamphetamine is now competing with others in Asia and South Africa markets. ''The super laboratory does not need ephedrine because it uses the synthesis method. ''Drug cartels are now shifting from simple method of methamphetamine production to a more complex process. ''The discovery calls for celebration, because the operation demonstrates the capacity and preparedness of the agency to track down drug cartels, irrespective of their covert mode of operation. ''The threat posed by this laboratory is disturbing because mass production will make the drug easily available, thereby increasing the rate of drug abuse, he said. According to the statement, more citizens will equally be targeted by drug cartels that are searching for drug smugglers outside the country with the tendency to increase the number of Nigerians in foreign prisons, thereby affecting the image of our country. It said that methamphetamine laboratories posed serious threat to humanity because of the toxic nature of chemicals used, adding that methamphetamine dump had the capacity of polluting the environment. ''This is because for every one pound of methamphetamine produced, about three to six pounds of toxic waste is created which can contaminate the water table within 500 meters radius from the laboratory," it added It stated that the laboratory contained highly poisonous solvents and gases some of which are pyrophoric in nature, capable of causing explosion, carcinogenic, capable of causing cancer adding that some were highly combustible and corrosive. According to the agency, the estimated cost of cleaning this laboratory is about N35 million. More funds are also needed to carry out public enlightenment to create awareness and provide information to help people make informed decisions. The agency, which called for protective measures to safeguard the lives of its officers and those of innocent Nigerians, advised members of the public to be vigilant and report suspicious factories to the NDLEA. 'A methamphetamine laboratory can be identified by their secret operations. ''It can be detected by irritation caused by chemicals, smell of chemicals and coloured water on sewage," it added. The agency also cautioned the people to avoid houses used for methamphetamine production, adding that chemical containers must not be used for domestic purposes. National President of the association, Mrs Agharase Arase, made the disclosure on Saturday in Lafia, shortly after meeting with POWA members, women police officers and children. Arase was represented by Mrs Jerusha Katso, wife Deputy Inspector-General of Police in charge of Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Force Headquarters, Abuja. ``We thought it wise to put in place palliatives that will address the suffering of the increasing number of widows in the association due to the demise of their husbands, she said. The associations president said that her visit to the state was to meet and boost the morale of orphans and widows of police officers. She disclosed that relief materials, scholarship and skills acquisition programmes were among measures put in place to assist members of POWA in the country. She charged women police officers and POWA members to always champion the course of peace and unity in the state and country. ''We will diligently and transparently scrutinize the budget and pass it into law'' , Wamakko, told newsmen in Sokoto on Saturday. Wamakko further reiterated the commitment of the National Assembly to complement the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari to move Nigeria forward and bring about positive changes in the affairs of the country. The lawmaker appealed to Nigerians to be patient and pray for the administration to succeed. According to Punch Newspaper, the commission made the move to ensure smooth flow of electioneering process as the rerun election holds today, Saturday, March 12, 2016. The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Dr. Gabriel Ada, revealed that the state assembly rerun election would be conducted in 11 local government areas. In his words, We are deploying over 3,500 ad hoc staff for the election but in addition, if you include security (personnel), the number will be approaching 10,000 staff that we will use for the rerun. This election is spread across 11 local government areas with four state constituencies covering seven local government areas, he told Punch. In the same vein, the Akwa Ibom State Command of the Nigeria Police Force under Murtala Mani has warned miscreants against causing trouble during the election. Okon, representing Oron/Udung Uko constituency, made his decision known at a news conference held in Uyo on Friday, less than 24 hours to thererun election. He added that "after due consultation with my family and immediate constituency, I have decided to withdraw from the rerun election fixed for March 12,2016 for very personal reasons. "I have also already resigned from the All Progressives Congress (APC). This is my will and final decision on this matter.'' He thanked the people of Oron/Udung Uko state constituency for their unflinching support and assistance throughout his sojourn and during the contest and his political career. Goodman was the governorship candidate of All Progressive Grand Alliance in the Nov.21, 2015 election in Kogi. The APGA candidate is challenging the election of Gov. Yahaya Bello, while APC, and INEC were joined as 2nd and 3rd respondents At the resumed sitting on Friday, Justice Halima Muhammad, the Chairman of the Tribunal, dismissed the petition against APC and INEC saying APGA did not follow the due process of the law. Justice Muhammad said the petitioner failed to comply with the provisions of Section 18(4) as well as Section 18 (1) of the 1st schedule of the 2010 Electoral Act Section 18 (1)A of the of the 1st schedule of the 2010 Electoral Act provides that ``the petitioner shall apply for pre-hearing papers within seven days of the respondent's response reply. Also, Section 18(4) stipulates that "Where the petitioner and respondent fail to bring an application under the said paragraph, the tribunal or court shall demiss the petition as abandoned petition''. The Chairman submitted that the petitioner did follow the due process as stipulated by the law. Muhammad said that the petitioner ought to have notified both parties, the APC and INEC, by also serving each of them the pre-hearing papers and not only the tribunal. INEC Counsel Chikezie Ekeocha had earlier urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition for not playing by the rules. Ekeocha also informed the tribunal that he had filed a motion predicated on five grounds and written addresses on why the APGA petition must be dismissed. Counsel to APC, Mr Muiz Banire (SAN) and Mr Abdullahi Aliyu (SAN) also aligned themselves with the prayers of INEC. Mr Promise Ogbadu, Counsel to the candidate of APGA, also filed a counter affidavit and written addresses on why the petition must remain. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Tambuwal made the comment, while speaking with journalists at Kofar Ajiya polling unit, shortly after casting his vote. The governor commended the efforts of the state independent electoral commission to organise hitch-free elections across the state, citing the availability electoral materials at all polling centres as a plus. Tambuwal, however, urged the residents to continue to live in peace with one another so as to promote socio-economic and political stability of the state and the country at large. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that there was an impressive turnout of women in most of the polling stations visited. Mr Aliyu Faruk, the Presiding Officer at Kalgama polling unit, told NAN that about 109 voters had so far been accredited. He said that all the party agents and security personnel also collaborated to ensure peaceful, hitch-free election. At Kofar Ajiya polling station, Isa Hamid, the Presiding Officer, said that the electoral commission had provided all the basic materials that were needed for the smooth conduct of the exercise. ``We have accredited 156 voters as at 11.02 a.m. and you can see that the voter turnout is quite impressive, he added. He told newsmen in Wamakko, Sokoto state, shortly after voting in Saturdays council elections in the state that Nigeria had come of age with the use of card reader machine. Wamakko, who is the immediate past governor of the state, said that the use of the device had shown that Nigeria was not averse to ``global changes and emerging positive trends. ``The card reader has reduced the cases of rigging and ballot box-stuffing to the barest minimum. '' Gov. Aminu Tambuwal and SIEC in the state deserve a pat on the back for using the card reader in today's local government elections in the state for the first time. '' Nigerians must be allowed to freely vote the candidates and political parties of their choices, he said. The lawmaker urged other state governments to emulate Sokoto state in the use of the card reader. Similarly, Deputy Governor of the state, Alhaji Ahmed Aliyu, expressed support for continued use of the card reader, saying that it would help in produce the desired leaders as wished by the people of the state. Aliyu stated this while speaking with newsmen after casting his vote at Tudun-Wada. ''We are committed to conducting free and fair polls and that was why SIEC employed the use of the card reader. One of those killed in the operation late on Thursday was Kamel Arabiya, a senior militant and veteran of Algeria's civil war in the 1990s, the defence ministry said in a statement. Arabiya led the local brigade of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and according to news reports may have recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State. The Algerian military is on high alert because of the risk from neighbouring Libya, where militants have taken advantage of a security vacuum to build their presence in the region. A security source told Reuters the weapons seized on Thursday were "very likely from Libya, our biggest headache right now". Following the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, some intelligence experts estimated that as many as 10,000-15,000 man-portable air defence system (MANPAD) sets were looted from Libyan government stockpiles. Algerian security services have previously found hundreds of MANPADs near the Libyan border. Such weapons can bring down aircraft with surface-to-air missiles. Algeria has slowly emerged from a conflict with armed Islamists in the 1990s that left as many as 200,000 dead, and still sees occasional militant violence in parts of the country. Woineshet Zebene Negash, who said she was raped in 2001, filed a complaint with the Gambia-based African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in 2007 after Ethiopia's court overturned the conviction of her perpetrator. "It is a practice that draws stark parallels with a proverbial ancient past when a man would hunt down the female of his choice, slug her over the head with a club, drag her by the hair to his dwelling, rape her and emerge triumphantly beating his chest," the court said in a ruling released this week. Child marriage is a major problem in Ethiopia, where one in two girls are brides by the age of 18, according to government data. Abusive practices include marriage by abduction -- as in Woineshet's case -- and forced unions between cousins. Families often agree for girls to marry their rapists because of the shame that they have lost their virginity. "The disposability of girls in Ethiopia and around the world needs to end," Faiza Mohamed, Africa director of the rights group Equality Now, which represented Woineshet in court, said in a statement. "We can only hope that the message this unprecedented ruling sends will have a ripple effect at all levels of society." A spokesman for the Ethiopian government declined to comment on the case on Friday. BLOOD Woineshet said she was kidnapped from her house in 2001 by several men, one of whom, Aberew Jemma Negussie, raped her. "The complainants allege... the police who rescued her testified to seeing blood on the pyjamas she was still wearing since her abduction," the court document said. "They allege that a medical report also showed many scratches and bruises around her vagina and confirmed that penetration had taken place." The police rescued Woineshet and arrested Aberew. But he abducted her a second time after being released on bail, held her captive for almost a month and forced her to give written consent to marriage, she said. Woineshet escaped and Aberew was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2003, with eight year sentences for his accomplices. Five months later, all the men were freed after an appeal court found the prosecution had not proven its case and the victim had consented to sex, court documents show. Under a law that was repealed in 2005, a rapist could not be prosecuted if his victim "freely contracts a marriage" with him. Equality Now argued that the marriage was invalid because Woineshet signed the contract under duress. Ethiopia's government told the court it had made an amicable settlement with Woineshet, providing her with a house and a job, and had dismissed the judge who overturned the conviction. The comments are the latest sign of deteriorating relations between Western powers and Uganda, an ally in the fight against Islamists in the region. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement on Friday that Uganda's repeated detention of opposition figures and harassment of their supporters, and the government's interference in a challenge of the poll results are "unacceptable activities in a free and democratic society". "The United States and Uganda have a long standing and strong partnership that has contributed to the stability and prosperity of the region," the statement said. "We are concerned that the Ugandan government's recent actions could endanger the economic and political progress that has enabled our relationship to grow." Kizza Besigye, who came in second with 35 percent and has rejected the results as fraudulent, has been under virtual house arrest for weeks. A second challenger, former prime minister Amama Mbabazi, has filed an official challenge to the results. Mbabazi said his lawyers' offices were raided soon after filing the challenge. The government has denied any involvement. Museveni has endeared himself to the West by contributing thousands of troops to a peacekeeping mission in Somalia. He has also been credited with bringing relative peace and economic growth to Uganda, a prospective oil producer. But critics say Museveni has not done enough to raise more Ugandans out of poverty or address widespread corruption. This blog is my personal blog. All views and articles expressed and written here are solely my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or denomination or anyone else. Most posts are written for my own personal edification, and are not written in response to any external situation, unless otherwise and explicitly stated. Nobody should be reading into them anything other than what is explicitly stated, unless otherwise confirmed by me in writing. Charity is so much more than the giving of resources. Its a sentiment Jonathan J. Reyes, Ph.D., will focus on as he gives the keynote at the 2016 Palm Sunday Brunch, an annual event sponsored by Catholic Social Services. Reyes will speak at noon March 20 at the Ramkota Convention Center. Reyes has been named executive director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). He will oversee USCCB efforts in domestic and international affairs and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the bishops' anti-poverty program. He assumed his new position in December. In Rapid City, Reyes will touch on topics of charity and community service through the lens of Pope Francis, who has become one of the worlds most famous public figures since being elected pope in 2013. Francis, who has uncharacteristically chosen to live in a modest guesthouse instead of the spacious papal apartments, has endeared people around the world with his openness and informality. Reyes said his very nature is about people and caring for them. One of his phrases, building a culture of encounter, is built on the idea that its important to connect with people on a personal level while serving them. Hes speaking out of years of being on the ground ministering to the margins, Reyes said. His thinking is shaped by that. Pope Francis encourages purposeful interactions with people, Reyes said. Like when hes talking about giving money to someone, he asks, Did you touch their hand? Did you look them in the eye? Reyes said. When hes talking about human dignity, hes talking about a human face. My hope is that people will think about that more deeply. It might be easy for Christians to become discouraged by the number of social justice issues that need to be addressed worldwide, Reyes said, but focusing on where you can affect change in front of you is the best place to start. Statistics arent reality; the reality is the human being in front of you, he said. Where to start helping is often found locally. Its whatever God puts on your heart, he said. But also the question is, Whats in your neighborhood? There are people in your parish who have needs, people in your neighborhood who have needs. The Lord has a way of putting things in front of you. Reyes said one act of kindness often leads to another. If you give him part of your life, hell find more for you to do, he said. Pope Francis has given people a bright reminder of how simple it is to give a helping hand, Reyes said. With him, theres this beautiful, Whats in front of you? aspect, he said. When you start helping others, you dont feel powerless. You start feeling joy. But on Friday, he stood tall in the gallery of the South Dakota House of Representatives as he accepted applause from members of the Legislature who looked up at him and saluted him. On Oct. 24, 2015, Bader had stopped a vehicle at mile marker 70 on I-90. As he tried to arrest the four occupants, one of them attacked him. Bader spent two weeks in Rapid City Regional Hospital for treatment of his injuries. The four people were arrested on suspicion of drug violations, and one of them, Donald Willingham, of Washington state, additionally has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. RAPID CITY | Grove Allen Rathbun, 85, died Tuesday, March 2, 2016, at Rapid City Regional Auxiliary Hospice House of complications from prostate cancer. He was born July 24, 1930, in Deadwood to Marion and Grove "Jack" Rathbun of Nisland. He attended the Nisland schools until graduation in 1948. Grove graduated from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in 1952, as a mining engineer and from the University of California, Berkeley with his Masters in Mining Engineering in 1959. After working for U.S. Steel for 33 years until his retirement in 1985, he taught courses in Mining Engineering and Industrial Engineering at the School of Mines for several years. Grove earned his private pilots license at 17 and had 65 continuous years in the air. Grove joined the US Air Force in 1954 and was honorably discharged in 1955. He was a member of the Air National Guard in both Duluth, MN, and Pittsburgh, PA, for more than 27 years, flying fighter jets. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel with a rating as Command Pilot in 1981. He continued his love of flying in his own Cessna 182. For his knowledge, professionalism and safety record, he was named a Wright Brothers Master Pilot by the FAA in 2005, for having flown 50 or more years. He served several terms recently as the president of the South Dakota Pilots Association. He was a member of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, having served as Senior and Junior Warden, was a dedicated guide for school and tour groups at The Journey Museum and was an ardent supporter of the SDSM&T Alumni Association. He was awarded the coveted Guy March Medal by the Alum Association. Survivors are his wife, Janet; sons, Steven (Diana) of Salt Lake City, Scott of Aurora, CO, and John (Deborah) of Chagrin Falls, OH; two grandchildren, David and Abigail of Chagrin Falls; and a brother, David Rathbun of Nisland. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Monday, March 14, at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, with a time to visit with family beginning at 9 a.m. Committal services will be at 1:30 p.m. at Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis, with military honors provided by the Ellsworth Air Force Base Honors Team. Memorials may be sent to Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 717 Quincy St., Rapid City, SD 57701; SDSM&T Alumni Association, 501 East St. Joseph St., Rapid City, SD 57701; or The Journey Museum, 222 New York St., Rapid City, SD 57701. Arrangements are under the direction of Osheim-Schmidt Funeral Home of Rapid City. Friends may sign his online guest register at osheimschmidt.com. Most of us must let go of childhood ambitions to become a firefighter or astronaut. But if scientist was on your grade-school wish list, thats easier now than ever. So claims Sharman Russell in her new book, Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and Other New Ways of Engaging the World, which the John Burroughs Association just awarded its top prize for distinguished nature writing. The award puts Russell in a distinguished line of nature writers, including Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Barry Lopez and John McPhee. And it was announced while she was making a mark on another literary totem pole serving this semester as the University of Montanas Bill Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer in the Environmental Studies Department. I worked with Bill from 1978 to 1981 he was my writing teacher for fiction, Russell said. But I always gravitated toward writing about science and nature. Now, Im working with students who are taking on really important topics like climate change and the future of agriculture, and they want to get better at explaining it. I believe in the act of writing. Its a natural, creative thing to do and Im glad people are doing it in the service of science. Montana Natural History Center communications director Allison De Jong said in addition to showcasing some beautiful writing about Russells home landscape of New Mexico, the book makes an appealing pitch for getting involved with research on the volunteer level. She shows how anyone, anywhere, can be a citizen scientist, De Jong said. All you need is curiosity and a little time and commitment and a desire to know the world a little better, whether youre a 9-year-old or a 90-year-old. After graduating from the University of Montana, Russell moved to southern New Mexico and took a professorship at Western New Mexico University. She also taught creative nonfiction writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles. She was contemplating the way scientists and non-scientists interact when she became aware of the growing number of research projects that depend on amateur data-gathering. In Missoula alone, that includes people who record movement of elk on Mount Jumbo all winter and appearance of flower buds on fruit trees along the Clark Fork River every spring. Classrooms of children sift buckets of New Jersey dirt for evidence of fossil mastodon meals while senior citizens log daily weather reports. Russell decided to try her own hand at a specific citizen-science project. She said it really got rolling after she emailed an entomologist for suggestions of what to study. He plunged me into the world of tiger beetles, Russell said. But more importantly, he told me how if you take an obscure insect and study it for more than a week, you will know more about that insect than anybody else on the planet. Thats not a reflection of Russells, or anybodys, powers of observation so much as a glimpse of the sheer volume of unanswered questions awaiting someone with the time to seek answers. Roughly 400,000 species of beetles populate the world. British evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane once quipped that one of the few things we can be sure about the Creator was he had an inordinate fondness for beetles. Spending two seasons concentrating on tiger beetles had unexpected benefits, Russell said. Not only did she learn a lot about all the beetles life stages from egg to adult, but she found her own relationship to the natural world evolving. It was a great way for me to get outside more, even in my own backyard, she said. And I tend to move quickly through the landscape as a walker or a runner. This made me slow down. It also exposed her to the multitude of different citizen-science projects seeking citizens. In addition to the well-known efforts like the Audubon Societys Christmas Bird Count, there are astronomy programs recruiting volunteers to identify galaxies in photos of star clusters, and biophysicists seeking help recording the way protein molecules fold into energy-efficient shapes. Scientists have learned that crowd sourcing their research is like having 10,000 grad students who get out and do stuff, Russell said. We dont have as many ornithologists and lepidopterists working as we used to. There arent that many paying jobs for them anymore. But weve got 200,000 people volunteering with the Cornell (University) Laboratory of Ornithology. That lets scientists do landscape-large projects. As complicated as those tasks sound, the sheer size of the citizen-science army makes the process work. For example, at least 30 galaxy-spotting volunteers inspect each sky photo and submit their results. The huge redundancy in the system helps newcomers learn the ropes while weeding out mistakes. Theres almost 1 million people cataloging galaxies, Russell said. You can go online and be cataloging galaxies in 10 minutes. Darwin did the same thing with volunteers mailing in observations by penny post. Now were using the power of tens of thousands of people making real science. And its not a one-way deal, where novices feed raw material to eggheads in white lab coats who produce esoteric publications. Citizen scientists bring things to the table that scientists cant do, like make demands for public policy or add an emotional context to a discovery, she said. They can raise political concerns or illustrate connections to the social world on a spiritual or emotional level that scientists dont like to talk about. It lets you be the things you didnt have a chance to do. Its a way to transform yourself and relive old dreams. A bass is not a trout. For some well-intentioned members of the Ravalli County Tourism Business Improvement District, that became painfully clear when the calls started coming in about a new billboard that welcomed people to the Bitterroot Valley with a big picture of a bass and fisherman casting a plug. Its beyond comprehension that someone would make that kind of mistake, said Dale Burk, a longtime Bitterroot fisherman. If we were in Arkansas, it would have been fine. Robbie Springs of Stevensville serves on the five-member volunteer board of Ravalli County TBID that has been working hard to promote the Bitterroot Valley for several years. We formed to bring destination tourism to the Bitterroot, Springs said. We all know that the Bitterroot Valley is a beautiful spot, but it hasnt been promoted at a high level like Glacier or the Flathead. Some visitors may have heard about the Bitterroot River, but they really dont know where its at. The organization is funded through a $1 a night fee collected from people staying in motels and lodges in the Bitterroot Valley. Its initial focus was to create a website that promotes the area. Once that project was completed, the groups marketing plan next called for designing a billboard that would encourage visitors to stop and stay a day or two. Springs said they discovered that billboards were controlled by a couple of companies in the state and it was challenging to get one. About six months ago, a sign company offered the organization a billboard just north of Lolo. We were really excited at that point, Springs said. The five member board decided it should feature the wonderful fishing we have here. And so they told the billboard company to design a sign that included a fisherman, fly and a fish. The designer apparently wasnt a fisherman. Unfortunately, neither were any of the five members on the board. The proof came back, Springs said. None of us are fisher people. We didnt realize that we had the incorrect species. It was in no way malicious. We really intended to create an image that is welcoming to our valley. Springs said theyve heard from quite a few trout loving residents. There have been lots of calls, especially from fishermen, she said. They told us that we had the wrong fish, wrong plug, just everything about it was wrong. The board met last Tuesday and decided the billboard needed to come down and a new one with the right fish and fisherman go up in its place. It cant happen overnight, Springs said. We do want to reassure people that it is going to happen. The new billboard should be up in the middle part of April. Longtime fishing outfitter and Bitter Root Water Forum Board Chair Eddie Olwell said hes certain people will be happy to hear that. Im sure it was well intended and being a person in the recreation business, I appreciate the spirit of it, Olwell said. I was disappointed that they got it so wrong. After spotting the big bass for the first time, Olwell said he had considered tracking down its owner, but he decided that might be considered nitpicking. And then he went into his favorite brewery where thats all people were grousing about. People were kind of wild about it, he said. While some say there are a few bass lurking about in the lower reaches of the Bitterroot River, Olwell said hes never seen or caught one. There are some bass in the ponds at Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge, but only youngsters can fish for those. Montana is the Mecca of fly fishing for trout that is known not only in the country, but around the world, he said. Ninety percent of the people who come to the Bitterroot, come to fish for trout. Its such a big part of our economy and so ingrained in us, its surprising to see something like this. Im sure they got an earful, Olwell said. From a market research point of view, Springs said the mistake did offer some insight. We do know now that people look at billboards, she said. Even driving by at 65 mph, people were able to identify that the fish was the wrong kind. They are definitely looking. Masters Of War Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins. How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.------- Bob Dylan 1963 The issue comes up all the time: you try and set up one of your ESRD patients for a procedure requiring iv contrast, such as a cardiac cath... In the world of literature poetry is a subculture and a secondary art form to other genres, particularly fiction and non-fiction. The famous poet W.H. Auden has aptly put forward the thesis: poetry makes nothing. The repetitive and common question that most poets face is as why they write poetry. The question per se augments negativity to this unpopular art. Yet the dichotomy of poetry is startlingit is widespread; non-commercially, and the traditional media shying away from it. If so, whats the significance of poetry then? Poetry is derived from the Medieval Latin word poetria and poet origins from the Latin word poetia. The history of poetry starts from as early as the first known civilizations the world. Critical writers and historians have stated that poetry, perhaps, predates literacy. The argument comes from the concept that poetry was used as a form to maintain the oral history of tradition, culture, religion and events to pass on to the next generation when language hadnt developed to its full form to writing. The first significance of poetry is that it preserves the human civilization in the outset of emotions combined with unstructured logic and denies the celerity of a nations death. It is often argued that poetry bears no thought process and is merely a short-form of bubbling emotions. Several poets over the decades have argued against such statement and have defended on their own. Irrespective of the general view about poetry, the media and publishers too haveplayed a role in belittling it. This behaviour doesnt augur well for the growth ofEnglish poetry in Nepal. 'If you visit the websites of most traditional publishers in India and Nepal then youll know that most of them cater to fiction and non-fiction writers. The latest genres to sweep away the book industry are self-help, spirituality, urban romance, and cliche books. If publishers are to be blamed solely, then book readers are none to second to deserve the wrath of poets. Even published poets complain that their books rarely sell and barely few buy it.' On that preface I have a bad news for aspiring poets in Nepal. Especially those who write in English. It is almost impossible to get published and then make a living out of it. We just cant blame the publishers for hesitating to publish the work of poetry. If you visit the websites of most traditional publishers in India and Nepal then youll know that most of them cater to fiction and non-fiction writers. The latest genres to sweep away the book industry are self-help, spirituality, urban romance, and cliche books. If publishers are to be blamed solely, then book readers are none to second to deserve the wrath of poets. Even published poets complain that their books rarely sell and barely few buy it. Only those who focus on a particular topic are likely to become famous in their lives or those who barge into the bandwagon of literary tricks perform well. Others wait till their death to get known like Sylvia Plath who won the Pulitzer Prize posthumously. Poetry, in short, is already declining in the western world. In Nepal, however, it is just emerging as a strong genre. English Poetry in Nepal had its evolution backto the opening of schools to the public post-Rana era in the 1950s. While the figures of fiction writers are known to most people and the world; the poets, on the other hand, have been pushed to the shadows by the culture of groupism and syndicate writing in Nepal. It is unfortunate to say that most fiction writers in Nepal have nurtured the superior attitude towards poetry writers as they feel that anyone can write a poetry. A short form of writing, perhaps, in their own words cannot be termed as a proper writing. This attitude significantly resonates in the western world too. A young fiery poet soon realizes in the course of time that writing a poem would not guarantee a space for him in the ever-changing world. The problem with the commercialization of literature and writers; novelists and poets, who are trying to make a survival from it is significantly fading since the advent of new media and technology. Not everyone can become the next J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath and several other bestseller writers. So why even write? The existential question about why to write and how to consider a writing is bad or good is debatable. We have scores of writers who have self-published and became famous. Others have (self) published and never made it to the headlines. It is not just poets that suffer from the lethargic sale of books. Fiction writers too have to bear the brunt but they do little better than poets whose books are placed somewhere in the bookstore and rarely anyone comes to buy it. The representation and media coverage of poets too in Nepal is negligible. They are not only underrepresented but also not given spaces in so-called literature festivals in Nepal. This culture, unlike in west where all genres are promoted and respected, in Nepal has seriously undermined the contributions, significance and thefuture of Nepalese English poetry. I hope this trend and attitude towards English poetry in Nepal changes over the years and that enough space is given to poets too. So that the future poets dont have to feel that their writings are secondary and inferior to fiction writers and go to hiding to write, almost sub rosa, never to be known and failing to add richness to the English Literature of Nepal. Twitter: @arunbudhathoki The Wire - 19 February 2016 It is perhaps the natural course of history that some events and individuals are remembered more than others. The Indian struggle for independence is no exception. While the great leaders, and the movements they led command respect, there remain unsung heroes whose contribution has remained unknown except in the scholarly books of historians. The mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy (RIN), which broke out on February 18, 1946 a and, in only five days, delivered a mortal blow to the entire structure of the British Raj a is one oft-forgotten saga. It is worthy of remembrance on its 70th anniversary. The tide of nationalism after WW2 The Second World War changed geopolitics. It also altered the way societies view the world and themselves. The Indian soldier was no exception. The war had caused rapid expansion of the RIN. In 1945, it was 10 times larger than its size in 1939. Recruitment was no longer confined to martial races; men from different social strata, including many college-educated, enlisted. As the campaigns carried the soldiers across the seas, they saw the world, read the newspapers and learnt that the war was for arestoring democracy and freedoma. The Indians themselves were hailed as liberators as they freed Greece, Italy, Burma, Indo-China and Indonesia from Axis rule. This forced many of them to wonder aWill not my own country be free? How am I a liberator when my own land is a colony?a Moreover, the inclusion of Indians in technical posts had proven that they were no less than the whites in professional expertise. And, they had seen first-hand how the Europeans had fled in face of the initial Japanese onslaught a awhite supremacya was an obsolete myth. But, the end of war also meant demobilization and the anxiety of unemployment. Worse, crude British racism knew no end. British salary was 5-10 times more than that of the Indian. They had better food, better quarters, better quality uniforms and travelled comfortably in individual berths. The Indian barracks were apigstiesa, the food was often inedible and Indians were herded into train compartments. The British and Australian troops could use the canteens and messes designated for Indians, but not vice versa. Even medals and recommendations were denied at times. The Indian soldiers loathed the foul language the British used and were not going to tolerate the arrogance anymore. The smoldering resulted in at least 9 minor mutinies between Mar 1942 a April 1945. With the war over, several factories were shut down leading to widespread unemployment. The increasingly strong labor movement protested through more than 1200 strikes during 1945-46. At the nationalist front, the memories of the heroic aQuit Indiaa movement were fresh. And then, the news of the struggle of Netajias INA burst onto the scene. Indians rejoiced that a formal Indian army, led by the charismatic leader, had actually fought the British in battle. As the trial of the INA officers proceeded in the Red Fort, the press printed tales of the non-sectarian character of their struggle. As Nehru described it, a[the trials] gave form to the old contest: England vs Indiaaa trial of strength between the will of the Indian people and the will of those who hold power in Indiaa. The anti-colonial attitude went beyond India. Indians deeply resented the fact that their army was now being sent to crush the new peoplesa governments in Burma, Indonesia and Indo-China, and reestablish French and Dutch colonies. In the last months of 1945, police firing killed 63 protestors at Bombay and Calcutta. These were turbulent times and the young Indian soldier was deeply affected. As BC Dutt, one of the leaders of the RIN mutiny wrote in his memoir, aThe barrack walls were no longer high enough to contain the tide of nationalisma. RINmutiny The sparks a the Azad Hindi boys on HMIS Talwar Based at Bombay, HMIS Talwar was the signal-training establishment of the RIN. With 1500 officers and ratings (enlisted members) on board, it was the second-largest training center in the whole empire. In the informative recollections titled Mutiny of the Innocents and The RIN Strike By a Group of Victimized Ratings, the former mutineers detailed the squalor on board the Talwar and the indifference or racism of the British officers. It was at this time that a colleague returned from Burma secretly carrying letters from INA men addressed to Nehru and Sarat Bose a an incident that ignited their latent patriotism. Years later, Dutt recalled, aawe came from widely different regionsa belonged to Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh families. The years spent in the navy had made them a the ratings of the RIN a Indiansa. A few of them formed a clandestine group called aAzadi Hindia and planned to create general disorder and unrest on Talwar. On Navy Day, 1st Dec, 1945, they painted aQuit Indiaa, aInquilab Zindabada and aRevolt Nowa all over the establishment and repeated it when Commander-in-Chief General Auchinlek came on a visit. Dutt was eventually arrested but his defiant reply to Commanding Officer King a aaSave your breath, I am ready to face your firing squada a made him an instant hero. Another rating, BR Singh, flung his cap down and kicked it in front of the officers. The unprecedented incidents received press coverage and surprised everyone. However, CO King responded by calling the ratings ayou sons of bitchesa and asons of bloody jungleesa. The emboldened ratings replied with slogans painted all over the Talwar, and even deflated the tyres of Kingas car. Though the events were confined to one center, word spread to all the ships and shore establishments in Bombay. Ratings openly began to discuss politics, read nationalist newspapers, set up a INA Relief Fund and submitted individual letters protesting against CO King. The strike at Talwar ripples outwards On February 17, when the ratings reiterated their demand for decent food, British officers sneered that abeggars cannot be choosersa. This was the last straw. On the 18th morning, 1500 ratings walked out of the mess hall in protest, a clear act of mutiny. Yet they also declared that athis is not a mere food riot. [We] are about to create historyaa heritage of pride for free India.a By 4.30pm, the ratings had rejected the appeals of their officers and even Rear Admiral Rattray. The astrike committeea decided their task was to take over the RIN and place it in the command of national leaders. A formal list of demands called for release of all Indian political prisoners including INA POWs and naval detainees, withdrawal of Indian troops from Indonesia and Egypt, equal status of pay and allowances and best class of Indian food. It also formally asked the British to quit India. The Bombay press was puzzled by the turn of events. Only the Free Press Journal understood the significance of what was underway, and editor S. Natarajan even offered his columns to the ratings. By that night, AIR and BBC had to broadcast the news of the RIN strike and it spread like wildfire across the country. The next morning, sixty RIN ships harboured at Bombay a including the flagship HMIS Narbada, HMIS Madras, Sind, Mahratta, Teer, Dhanush, Khyber, Clive, Punjab, Gondawana, Berar, Moti, Jamna, Kumaon, Oudh a and eleven shore establishments, including the large Castle Barracks and Fort Barracks, pulled down the Union Jack and hoisted the three flags of the Congress, the Muslim League and the Communist Party. Under the ajoint bannera of Charka-Crescent-Hammer and Sickle, the ratings marched in thousands towards the epicenter, the Talwar. They chased foreigners, stoned British-owned shops and pulled down the flag from the USIS library. By the morning of February 20, the strike had spread to Calcutta, Karachi, Madras, Jamnagar, Vishakapatnam, Cochin and other navy stations. In all, around eighty ships, four flotillas, twenty shore establishments and more than 20,000 ratings joined the mutiny. Most Indian officers, barring a few like Lieutenant Sobani and Lieutenant Mani, stayed away. Yet in 48 hours, British India had lost control of its navy. HMIS Kumaon The HMIS Kumaon. Credit: Wikimedia Commons The Indian National Navy A newly-formed Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC) included 12-36 representatives from all the ships and barracks of Bombay. Leading signalman MS Khan and petty officer telegraphist Madan Singh were elected president and vice-president. Years later, their comrades recalled how both were afree of the communal virusa. They declared the RIN renamed as the aIndian National Navya. They also decided that their struggle would be a non-violent one and henceforth they would take orders aonly from the national leadersa. As the NCSC asked for guidance, however, what they heard was an uneasy silence. Finally, the Left-leaning Congress leader Aruna Asaf Ali advised them to accept the counsel of Sardar Patel. She also informed Nehru, explaining the tense situation that was aclimaxing to a grim closea. Meanwhile, the ratings marched in discipline at Colaba and Flora Fountain, with slogans of aHindu Muslim ek hoa and aInquilab Zindabada. The people of Bombay cheered them. Journalists who visited the Talwar were surprised to find that the primary demand of the ratings was now not better amenities, but freedom from British rule. They even rebuked the journalist of the Times of India for having tried to malign them in the previous dayas reporting. The ratings told the reporters, aWe shall use the little knowledge they have given us against them. Remember the INA. We too shall teach them a lessona. The government had been stunned, but now, deducing that nationalist leaders were not keen to support the uprising, Admiral Godfrey reached Bombay to negotiate with the NCSC. The political inexperience of the young NCSC made them hesitate, and they accepted Godfreyas demand that they return to their respective ships and barracks. Within an hour, Godfrey had sent the army to surround the barracks. Realizing they had been tricked, the ratings discontinued their hunger-strike, broke open the magazine and prepared for battle. Battle at Castle Barracks; Indiaas aBattleship Potemkina moment The next morning, the British officers discovered that the Maratha soldiers ordered to attack the barracks, were sympathetic to the ratings. They were replaced with British troops and rating Krishnan became the first martyr of the counter-offensive. In face of spirited resistance, the attacks against both Castle Barracks and the ships were indecisive. That night, a press release from NCSC read, aten ratings and around fifteen British soldiers have been killeda. Prime Minister Attlee, however, had announced that seven ships were heading for Bombay and Admiral Godfrey had demanded unconditional surrender. Realizing the danger, the NCSC earnestly appealed aYou, our people and our respected political leaders come to our aidayou must support us.a The leaders were still absent, but the people had come in overwhelming numbers. A rumour that the British were going to starve the ratings into surrender, brought thousands of civilians to the Gateway of India with fruits, milk, bread and vegetables. The ratings came by motorboats and collected all that was offered. Hindu, Muslim and even Iranian shops and eateries asked them to take whatever they needed for free a similar to the famous fraternizing scenes of the classic Battleship Potemkin a and the Indian soldiers on duty did not stop them. HMIS Hindustan The HMIS Hindustan. Credit: Wikimedia Commons The ahartala a bloodbath at Bombay and the battle at Karachi The Bombay Studentsa Union and the CPI had called for a general strike and the NCSC had asked people to make it a success. In contrast, Gandhi was clearly unsupportive of the unplanned uprising and Sardar Patel even asked people to ago about their work as usuala. For once, the people rejected the great leaders. The strike was atotala and processions rolled across the city. At the seaside, British troops now prevented any food from reaching the ships. In the Fort area, a military truck recklessly ran over couple of protestors. This triggered a general mayhem and, within few hours, at least eleven military trucks were torched. The army responded with indiscriminate firing, especially in working class areas of Parel. By night, the city was under curfew. At Karachi harbor, HMIS Hindustan had resisted British small-arms throughout the February 21. They had been helped by the once-loyal Gurkha and Baluch regiments, who had refused to fire at them. By the next morning, however, the British had positioned artillery around the ship, and as the tide ebbed, the Hindustanas levels dropped and made it difficult for the ratings to aim their guns. The artillery opened fire. After thirty minutes, with six ratings dead, the ship surrendered. HMIS Kathiawad, which was in high seas, had responded to the distress calls from Hindustan. However, learning that they would be too late for Karachi, they turned towards Bombay. Surrender With no assistance from either the Congress or the League, the NCSC were disheartened. A show of strength by RIAF bombers had only been delayed because an entire squadron from Jodhpur, piloted by Indians, had mysteriously developed engine trouble. Instead a British squadron flew over the ships. Clearly, Admiral Godfrey had firepower at his disposal and he would use it. Khan, Singh and their colleagues met under the shadow of the slaughter in the city. They agreed that athe debt of this blood has to be repaid a hundred-folda and made order against any unconditional surrender. Hectic negotiations with Sardar Patel followed. He assured them that the national leadership would look into their grievances and prevent any victimization. A clear divide formed among the ratings a many wanted to fight along with the people, but others cautioned that their military resources were very limited. Besides, having declared that their objective was to do as instructed by the national leaders, how could they go against the same leadership? At that moment, Jinnahas message reached the NCSC; he also asked them, especially the Muslim ratings, to surrender. This sealed the fate of the mutiny a thirty out of 36 members of NCSC now voted to stop the struggle. From private correspondence, it seems Patelas decision had been influenced by the idea that adiscipline in the army cannot be tampered witha. A few months later, Patel would refer to the ratings as aa bunch of young hotheads messing with things they had no business in.a Nehru would accept that athe gulf that separated the people from the armed forces had once for all been bridged. The janata and soldier have come very close to each other.a But both leaders had failed to provide the ratings with the political support they needed; and, when hundreds of ratings were imprisoned for months in abominable conditions at the Mulund camp, there would be no one to speak for them. The CPI fared better. Its call for nation-wide strikes clearly demonstrated the solidarity of the people with the ratings. But, their overall alignment with the national movement finally let the RIN mutiny down. On February 23, at 6am, all ships surrendered. At the Thane-based HMIS Akbar, 3500 ratings and 300 sepoys refused to surrender, but had to capitulate in face of bayonets. When HMIS Kathiawad reached the Bombay coast, it found the royal cruiser Glasgow blocking its way. In a last act of valiant defiance, the little corvette threateningly aimed its puny 12-pounder gun at the giant adversary. aGoliatha Glasgow, perhaps in respect for bravery, allowed them to sail into Bombay harbour a the first Indian-administered ship to ever reach an Indian port to assist Indians. They arrived to the news that it was all over. The battles rage on The general public was, however, in no mood to give up. Seething with anger, over the next day, the city raised barricades and fought bullets with stones. In just two days, the official tally recorded 228 civilians and three policemen dead, and 1,046 people and 91 policemen and soldiers injured. By the evening of February 23, Congress, League and CPI volunteers were asking people to disperse. In Calcutta, the strike led by the Union of Tramway Workers extended into the next day and, for the first time, railway workers joined in, paralysing large parts of the country. Notably, at Majerhat in Calcutta, jawans and NCOs of the 1386 Indian Pioneer Company joined the strike. When their angry commanding officer slapped Naik Budhan Sahab, he was slapped back. At his court-martial, a defiant Budhan thundered, aWhat? I should beg of mercy from my enemy?a a sending shockwaves throughout the military establishment. In its last statement released on the night of 22nd February, the NCSC concluded, aOur strike has been a historic event in the life of our nation. For the first time the blood of men in the Services and in the streets flowed together in a common cause. We in the Services will never forget this. We know also that you, our brothers and sisters, will not forget. Long live our great people. Jai Hinda. Naval uprising statue in Mumbai. Credit: Wikimedia Commons In conjunction with the INA trials and the peasant movements of Telengana and Tebhaga, the peoplesa unity during the mutiny had loosened the last pillars of the Raj. Indian leaders may have fumbled, but the British knew that their days were over. On March 15, Prime Minister Attlee accepted that, aThe tide of nationalism is running very fast in India and indeed all over Asiaathe national ideas have spread a among some of the soldiers.a Historians agree that the one thing the British had consistently feared was united mass movements. They would not risk facing another aQuit Indiaa, this time with veterans of the INA and RIN in the country. A year later, they fled before the Empire collapsed on their own heads. Anirban Mitra is a molecular biologist and a teacher residing in Kolkata. Intro Greetings! I am a political scientist , specializing in International Relations , my research and teaching focus on ethnic conflict and civil-military relations . I watch way too much TV, and I like movies as well so I tend to write about both and find IR stuff in pop culture. I rant alot about American politics and sometimes about Canadian politics. I like to take ideas I once learned a long time ago and apply them to whatever strikes my fancy. I give my consent to Sakshi Post to be in touch with me via email for the purpose of event marketing and corporate communications. Privacy Policy Refugees in Europe on the Verge of Humanitarian Disaster "...a life worse than that of prison"- Anna Sabatova, on visiting a refugee camp in Czech Republic. Girl plays in the mud at a makeshift refugee camp near the Greek-Macedonian border, photo courtesy: 20read.com (SKOPJE, Republic of Macedonia) - The Greece-Macedonian border witnessed a lugubrious scenes of a large influx of Iraqi and Syrian asylum-seekers. Human Rights organizations cited reports of Police clashed with a group of 300 refugees trying to cross the border fence. The police are reported to have fired tear gas at crowds. On the eve of the EU-Turkey summit, hoping to reach a solution to the deteriorating refugee crisis, 13,000 migrants thronged at different Macedonian border areas living in poor sanitary conditions. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) considered the current migrant crisis as an 'awful tragedy', as hundreds of children and women perish in their way to Europe's heartland. According to EU officials in Brussels, only a meager 24 million is paid out of 1.8 billion, initially promised by major European capitals to reprieve the worsening refugee crisis. Anna Sabatova, a human rights activist, visiting a refugee camp in Czech Republic, lamented the living conditions of refugees which she regarded as "a life worse than that of prison" and "in direct contradiction of international laws". In the same line, many sociologists believe the deteriorating refugee crisis might plunge Europe into an abyss of socio-economic ruin, xenophobia and racism. A recent editorial in The Guardian blamed the EU for the myriad cases of refugee deaths, criticizing the EU's handling of Syria's five-year crisis. The newspaper encouraged European politicians to seek the solution in Syrian-Syrian peace talks in Damascus, instead of futile meetings in Brussels. _________________________________________ Turkey and Extremist Rebels Breach Syria Truce Syrian people blame Turkey and Saudi Arabia for stoking the fire Courtesy: voanews.com (MOSCOW) - According to the Russian language newspaper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, radical Wahhabi militants and their key regional backer, Turkey, have not been observing the temporary ceasefire agreement. The hard-line Jaysh al-Islam rebel group has declared that the Syrian army is preparing itself to advance in the rebel-held areas after the termination of the internationally mediated truce, thus the group won't accept the status quo and sees it incumbent upon itself "to defend the civilians" by attacking the army positions. Since the beginning of the Salafi rebellion in Syria, Jaysh al-Islam supported mainly by Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been targeting the residential areas in Damascus with daily mortar attacks, wounding and killing hundreds of civilians. In the meantime, the Kurdish People's Protection Unit (YPG) accused the rebels in Aleppo led by al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's Syria branch and Ahrar Ash-Sham of renewing hostilities and shelling Kurdish populated neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood. Turkish-backed ISIS terrorist also launched a heavy attack on Tal Abyad, only a stone's throw away from the Turkish border, in an attempt to wrest control of the city from YPG units. In spite of YPG guerrillas being successful in fending off ISIS terrorists in northern and southern fronts, furious clashes are reported from the border town. Syrian people blame Turkey's Erdogan and Saudi Arabia for stoking the fire and violating the ceasefire. The Turkish premier, Ahmet Davutoglu, has made recent provocative statements that his administration doesnt recognize the ceasefire agreement in Syria. _________________________________________ Tuition freeze helps reduce inflation burden on college students Inflation on gas and groceries is affecting college students, as data, similar to the BLS CPI, from the Kansas State University Economics Club shows. Click On Our Advertisers Ads Most of our ads have links to take you directly to their Websites. Just click on an ad and away you go. Macky Sall, president de la Republique du Senegal Le president Macky Sall qui bat campagne sur le terrain, a egalement decide dinvestir les reseaux sociaux. Il a poste sur Facebook un texte dans lequel il defend ses arguments et cherche a convaincre les sceptiques de la necessite de voter Oui a son referendum du 20 mars. Un post qui suscite a la fois adhesion et colere chez les internautes. J'ai propose une revision constitutionnelle qui renforce la democratie et l'Etat de droit, jai surtout propose des mecanismes pour la stabilite de nos institutions. De nombreuses crises notees en Afrique sont provoquees par la volonte de rester le plus longtemps au pouvoir concentre entre les mains d'un President de la Republique qui est un veritable monarque, ecrit le chef de lEtat sur sa page Facebook quil met a profit de la campagne pour le Oui au referendum du 20 mars. Une revision constitutionnelle dont lobjectif, selon lui, est de prevenir de crises au Senegal. En reduisant les pouvoirs du President de la Republique, en verrouillant desormais la duree et le nombre de mandats du President de la Republique, le Projet de revision de la Constitution neutralise des sources de conflit et apporte un nouveau souffle a notre democratie. C'est avec ce meme souci d'eviter a notre pays des crises humainement et economiquement couteuses que j'ai egalement propose la constitutionnalisation du droit imprescriptible des populations sur le patrimoine foncier et les ressources naturelles ainsi que leur droit a un environnement sain, explique le chef de lEtat. Toutefois, si le post du president Macky Sall recueille des avis favorables, il est loin de faire lunanimite. Il suscite des reactions hostiles comme celle de Issa Balde, un internaute qui sindigne de lappel a la transhumance toujours d'actualite: J'aurai bien aime voir l'interdiction ou l'encadrement de la transhumance politique dans mon pays. Nous votons pour x pour sanctionner la gestion de y et x et y se retrouvent pour gerer ensemble ou est le sens de mon vote? Dans ces reformes constitutionnelles je ne m'y retrouve pas. C plutot la reforme des politiciens. Inutile de dire que je voterai non , ecrit linternaute. Tel nest cependant pas lavis de Pape Samba Diakhate, qui sinterroge : Pourquoi sanctionner un President sur son desir de rendre son pays plus stable. C'est vrai, il n'a pas fait ce qu'il avait promis; mais a cause de la juridiction de son pays qui ne lui (a) pas donne son aval et je trouve sa honorable de sa part, defend cet internaute. Monsieur le president, pourquoi vous n'avez pas laisse le peuple decider du mandat, et par suite leur soumettre un referendum sur la constitution qui n'a pas d'enjeu sur votre mandat? Je trouve que c'est un peu egoiste de votre part!..., reagit un autre. The latest SCOTUSblog analysis of the top contenders for SCOTUS nomination | Main | "Why We Would Spare Walter White: Breaking Bad and the True Power of Mitigation" Bill Otis here at Crime & Consequences flagged this interesting local article from Indiana headlined "Prison officials say lighter sentences aren't saving money." The article discusses a report issued by the Indiana Department of Correction asserting that "costs have more than tripled since it began diverting low-level offenders out of state prisons and back into their communities" as a result of a sentencing reform law enacted in 2014. Bill seems to think this article reveals that sentencing reforms do not deliver on promised cost savings, but a read of the full article (and not just the parts highlighted by Bill) reveals that some funny math is behind the latest cost claims now coming from the Indiana DOC: Senate Judiciary Chairman Brent Steele, R-Bedford, calls it ridiculous and says the report contains phony-baloney numbers. Lawmakers who pushed to lower penalties for drug-related crimes, such as drug possession and theft, vowed to return anticipated savings from prison costs to communities for treatment programs, community corrections and local lock-ups. But, according to the department's report, there's no money to send. This despite a reduction in the prison population of more than 5,000 inmates a 17 percent drop - since the law went into effect in July 2014.... Corrections officials say the new law will cost an additional $400,000 in the first six months of this year - for jail costs alone. That expense is expected to climb before the years end. Thats because the state spends about $35 a day to house a convicted, low-level offender in a county jail, according to the Correction Department report. The department claims it can house the same inmate in a prison for just under $10 a day. Steele and other lawmakers who were deeply involved in crafting the sentencing reform law are irked by those claims. Two years ago, when Correction Department officials asked lawmakers for money, they reported it cost about $60 a day to house a state prisoner. A year ago, prison officials said they needed an additional $51 million to build a new state prison. Steele and others rejected the proposal, predicting that the state would be able to close a prison and save millions as sentencing reform took hold. Steele said the department now is refusing to cooperate with the intent of the sentencing reform law. Corrections officials dont see it that way. The department's legislative director, Jon Ferguson, said the $10-a-day rate used in the report is a marginal per diem that doesnt include the fixed, operational costs associated with running big prisons. And the number of those prison facilities the state operates hasnt gone down since the sentencing reform law was put into place. Promised savings from sentencing reform was key to getting it passed and to winning support from sheriffs, judges and local officials who feared it presented another unfunded mandate by the state. The Legislature set aside an initial $60 million for communities to offset initial costs. But lawmakers assured critics that the sentencing reform would eventually pay for itself. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, who helped craft the sentencing reform law with Steele, also questioned the validity of the Corrections Department's report. But, he noted, Were in a transition year. I expect to see much different numbers by next year," he said. Was it all a dream... house? The San Francisco Dream House raffle, a yearly benefit for the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, advertises a mansion home as its grand prize, but it won't necessarily give one out, as the Chronicle and the Better Business Bureau have taken notice. In fact, in the seven-year history of the raffle, no one has ever moved into the dream house. Perhaps that's because they've simply taken the other grand prize offer: A $4 million annuity or, alternatively, a $2.8 million one-time payment, instead of the manse which is advertised as being worth $5 million. Each ticket clocks in at $150, and there are many prizes awarded each year from cars to vacations to cash. But the dream house, as seen in advertisements all about town, is only up for grabs if 65,000 tickets are sold by the draw on July 9th. So, what are the chances of that? It would be nice to know! The Better Business Bureau has asked, but the raffle won't say. "We're not feeling comfortable in divulging the way in which we administer the raffle," Yerba Buena spokesperson Voleine Amilcar told the Chron. "We'd essentially be giving away our playbook." According to the Better Business Bureau, they have "requested that the organization clarify the raffle by substantiating whether there is an existing house as pictured in the brochures and on their website, if the house was donated or being purchased, how many houses have been given away, if early bird prizes are guaranteed, and if the raffle was run by Yerba Buena Center of the Arts or another organization." In response, wrote the raffle: "Your letter requested that we provide information that we consider to be proprietary and/or subject to non-disclosure agreements. Should you have a specific complaint regarding the nature or accuracy of our advertising materials you should direct them to either the AG's office or the office of a local District Attorney." Well, one thing's for sure. The house advertised this year is real. Here's another thing that's known. It already has some real occupants. "Usually, the nonprofit is not given the home," the Chronicle explained in 2009. "It might lease it from the owner with an option to buy if the winner chooses the home. The owner gets paid for keeping the house off the market during the raffle, and even if it doesn't end in a sale, the home gets plenty of free publicity." This time, the property is located in St. Francis Wood at an undisclosed address. It was listed on the market at roughly $5 million for some time, but now the would-be seller has moved back in. That owner kept mum when asked about the contest, having signed paperwork to keep whatever arrangement there might be strictly confidential. So, should you buy a ticket to this charity raffle? Sure, if you aren't banking on it scoring you a place to live. Related: From Dot-Com Palace To Squatter's 'Thug Mansion', Pac Heights Copy Of Versailles Chateau Nears Sale Cities on the left-leaning left coast are donating in droves to Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator and candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination about whom all your (most vocal and enfranchised) friends are freaking out on Facebook. Well, by way of the Seattle Times, here's a new one for the social media savvy Berners to share: San Francisco has offered up the 2nd most in per-capita campaign contributions of any US city to the Sanders campaign. Seattle came in first in that metric, with total spending of $596,578 and $893 in donations per 1,000 residents. But San Francisco actually spent more: $669,283 in total spending, although there was a little bit less in per-capita spending here than in Seattle, with $785 in donations per 1,000 residents. Next up was Portland, of course, and look, right after that it's Oakland, with $202,461 in total spending and $489 in donations per 1,000 residents. All this info, it should be noted, comes from the FEC and Census Bureau. Sanders' campaign has drawn on small donations, a point on which he and his team pride themselves, but setting those aside for a moment the Senator still has ground to make up in the Golden State. In a Field poll from January the Senator trailed Hillary Clinton's campaign among California democrats with 35% of the vote compared to her 46%. Related: Photo Of Allen Ginsberg And Bernie Sanders Resurfaces, Recalls Poem To Politician We told you where to find the best Irish food in San Francisco, warned you not to eat Trader Joe's pistachios, lamented the demolition of waterfront staple Sinbad's, and asked a native to weigh in on the all important question of what is her favorite burrito. A lot of other food news broke this week, however, so let's get to it. The pricey and much-loved Nobu will be opening a spot in Palo Alto, Eater informs us. The Japanese restaurant originated in Beverly Hills and now has 32 locations. There's no opening date as of yet. Divisadero got a new Indian spot, reports Hoodline. Indian Paradox moved into the former King Foot Sub, and owner Kavitha Raghavan compliments her take on Indian street food with a stocked wine bar (she's also a sommelier, so you can bet the pairings will be no joke). We touched on this one before, but now it's official: Lemonade filed formula retail permits to move into the former La Boulange on 9th Avenue in the Inner Sunset, notes Eater. The fast casual chain serves cafeteria-style, which they say is their secret to high-quality food at a reasonable cost. On the other side of the Bay, Noodle Theory Provisions, helmed by Louis Kao, softly opened this week on Oakland's San Pablo Avenue, reports Inside Scoop. But don't stress its Claremont Avenue spot hasn't gone anywhere. In less exciting news, The Ice Cream Bar's Castro Fountain will not be opening until at least this summer, Hoodline tells us. Unspecific problems with PG&E have delayed the opening at 554 Castro Street, but when it does finally start slinging dairy treats, make sure to take advantage of the sidewalk seating the owners say they're planning on. Meanwhile, not too far away, Hoodline reports that the Castro Super Duper Burger is looking to super size its Market Street location by expanding into the next door business. Eater informs us that a Monday morning kitchen fire at Mason Pacific will force the business to close for two weeks while they make repairs. No one was injured, and the cause of the fire has not been released. The Tenderloin is about to get a new place for Burmese food, reports Inside Scoop. Owner William Lue, who already has several East Bay restaurants, plans to soft open Tender Loving Food on March 15. Chino is no more, but the team behind Tacolicious will soon open a Cal-Mexican cantina called Bar San Pancho in the space. Partner Joe Hargrave told Tablehopper that it should open in early April. In a different kind of swap, Divisadero's Fly Bar is about to get a new owner. Hoodline reports that owner Matt Sturm is selling the place to Lopac Group, but Sturm insists that the new owners have no intention to change the vibe of the place. The Inner Sunset is getting a little ray of sunshine in the form of Hawaiian spot Poki Time, which Hoodline tells us soft opened today. The casual restaurant will focus on fish dishes. In fact, poke might be having "a moment," as they say. We learn via Hoodline that David Fukuda, a partner in La Mar Cebicheria Peruana, has filed paperwork to open a spot called Poke Cali in the Financial District. We're still waiting for details on a potential opening date. Also in the FiDi, Seattle's Homegrown Sustainable Sandwiches chain will soon open a location this summer reports Hoodline. As the name would suggest, it will be focused on sustainable sourcing for its meats and veggies. In other sandwich news, Inside Scoop lets us know that Sauls Delicatessen in Berkeley is on the hunt for a new owner. The current owners, Peter Levitt and Karen Adelman, are apparently ready to retire but they don't want to close it down for good. A different kind of shuffling is also coming to Berkeley as chef Charis Wahl returns to Gather to replace current chef Tu David Phu, says Inside Scoop. Phu is leaving to pursue a Vietnamese pop-up. The Organic Coup, when it opens later this month in Rincon Center, will be the second location for the restaurant that bills itself as an organic fast food joint. Inside Scoop says that the project is the work of former Costco executives Erica Welton and Dennis Hoover, so don't be surprised if this chain scales up over the next few years. On a totally different note, how does eating shrimp and grits on an airplane sound? Well, Eater tells us that 1300 on Fillmore's chef and owner David Lawrence is in the process of opening a second location past security in SFO. You'll now be able to bring po boys on planes, as Lawrence will serve his food to go as well as to seated diners. Owners Anna Weinberg and James Nicholas, perhaps emboldened by the success of Leos Oyster Bar, will open a semi-secret backroom expansion called The Hideaway reports Eater. Expect a rotating list of cocktails. Wes Rowe is ending his weekly pop-ups at Mojo Bicycle Cafe to focus on his forthcoming 18th and Mission Street restaurant, WesBurger n' More. Next Wednesday, Hoodline tells us, is his final night at Mojo. If you're just biding your time and waiting for the rain to cease so you can frolic about town, then Eater has something for you to do while you wait. Specifically, spend some time looking over what the publication considers to be the most anticipated spring openings. And then, you know, go eat at those places. For something under-discussed in the food world, Eater writes about how Chris Cosentino, the successful chef and owner behind Cockscomb, opened up to ChefsFeed about his experience with mental illness. Speaking of chefs, having tested the waters with the first season, the streaming and production company Netflix is fully diving in and has renewed its documentary series Chef's Table for three more seasons. Inside Scoop tells us we can expect to see Michelin-starred chef Dominique Crenn in season two. This Week In Reviews The Chronicle's Michael Bauer spent some serious time reveling in the "exuberant boldness" of David Kinch's Bywater, the Los Gatos New Orleans-focused restaurant that offers a $19 po boy sandwich (Bauer is "still dreaming" about that sandwich, we learn). He thinks the fried chicken is worth writing home about, and somehow feels that the long lines resulting from the no reservations policy adds something to the overall experience. All in all, he finds it casual "pure pleasure" and gives the restaurant three stars. Peter Lawrence Kane went to The Perennial, a self-styled "progressive agrarian" restaurant, and came away with a lot to say. It seems, however, that Kane's takeaway was mostly negative. He uses The Perennial's commitment to a sustainable food sourcing model as an opportunity to rant against humanity's doomed-to-failure efforts to battle climate change, and scoffs at the "weird textures, uninspired flavors, and unpalatable wines." And yes, he then notes the portions are small which, with a bill of $240, is probably understandable. The Perennial is a combined effort from Karen Leibowitz, Anthony Myint, and chef Chris Kiyuna a fact which doesn't stop the critic from observing that the "most impressive feature of The Perennial is the interior." Kane, we assume, won't be going back. Anna Roth, on the other hand, had what sounds like a confusing but ultimately enjoyable encounter with Thoughts Style Cuisine Showroom. The SoMa restaurant bills itself as a fashion showroom thats food instead of clothing items, and co-owner and Mu Chanma says the idea for the place was that she wanted to be able to wear sunglasses inside thus the overpowering brightness of the light fixtures. Roth spends some time exasperatedly denouncing the gall (gall!) of a 24-year-old untrained chef opening a spot (that she self-financed, by the way) when there are chefs with "real credentials" struggling (sample sentence: "This project seems so frivolous that its hardly worth getting worked up about, and I suspect that Chanma, who has all the earnestness and solipsism of 24, simply hasnt thought about any of this.") before saying that, for the relatively inexpensive price, she likes the food. She recommends the stir fry. "Every picture has its shadows, and it has some source of light." - Joni Mitchell It is quite amazing how politicians of Nepal are using social media for various purpose. Leaders are setting up their Facebook fan page, political parties are creating their groups and pages which is very very interesting.Although only 12% of the country's population has direct access to internet, it is estimated that around 3,411,948 internet users are online everyday in Nepal. With such limited number and limited service the popularity of social media and its use has increased exponentially.Even during the 13th National General Convention of the Nepali congress a huge efforts were seen in promoting their candidates. The supporters were genuinely doing an effort in creating a buzz for getting votes promoting their political manifesto and agendas for future.The use of social media has increased phenomenally during the last few years where once the social media was accused of being a worthless tool of blaming and accusing the politicians. If you look at the trend these days Nepali political leaders are more twitting and facebooking of expressing their voice and reaching the public.Nepal's political culture is yet to change but with the shift of social media politicians of Nepal are more aware of current issues and public voice which is clearly visible. NORTH SIOUX CITY | Public input is being sought at an informational meeting to be held by the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources March 22 in North Sioux City. The meeting will be to discuss a new hydrologic and hydraulic model to be developed for the Big Sioux River basin. It will be from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at City Hall, 504 River Drive, the meeting will be open to local governmental officials and the public. Informational displays about the model project will be available for viewing, with DENR staff to present an overview of the proposal at 4 p.m. Data generated from the model will allow more accurate predictions of river stages during flood events. The model will also consider how natural landscape changes impact flows during a flood event and how variable flows in the Missouri River impact flood events in the lower Big Sioux River basin. SIOUX CITY | Sioux City has been selected as the 2016 Iowa SBA Small Business Community of the Year, the city announced Friday. The award bestowed by the U.S. Small Business Administration honors community efforts to support small business. According to the organization, Sioux City was selected because it had demonstrated a collaborative environment for small business success. During a news conference Friday at City Hall, City Councilman Dan Moore said the award shows Sioux City has become a positive environment for entrepreneurship and small businesses. "I hope our community will support the startup businesses, I really do," Moore said after the conference. "They truly are the future of Sioux City and the state of Iowa. They will continue to grow if we support them." The group recognized Start-Up Sioux City as a contributing factor to helping small businesses thrive in Iowa's fourth largest city. Sioux City will be presented the award during the Iowa Smart Conference in Des Moines on April 28. The city also will be recognized during the small business week reception on May 6 in West Des Moines. I can't deny it: I'm a late-in-life, born again. It is surprising that it took so long, since I grew up in and around Cleveland, which boasts the world's second largest Slovenian population. But aside from our yearly potica-making ritual, my mother never talked much about her ethnic roots, either in America or in the tiny, beautiful Alpine land of Slovenia, once part of Yugoslavia. Her parents were named Kozlevcar and Adamic. My grandmother was a cousin of Louis Adamic, the famous leftist writer from the 1930's and 1940's. And that's all I knew, for most of my life, until my passion for the Cajun accordion brought me back. My first book,came out in 2009. Now I'm on a new journey, and writing another book, exploring my own roots. Looking for answersand perhaps a few good recipes along the way. This journal has been deleted and purged. There are many fitness goals out there that we desire. Some of us want to be leaner and others wish to put on muscle mass. The thing is, for you to achieve your fitness goals, you need to WASHINGTON (MArch 12, 2016)The U.S. Department of Defense recently announced the following contract awards that pertain to local Navy activities., is being awarded afixed-price incentive (firm target) modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-13-C-0023) to definitize the manufacture and delivery of 12 Lot 13 UH-1Y aircraft; 16 Lot 13 AH-1Z aircraft, and 16 auxiliary fuel kits. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (60 percent); and Amarillo, Texas (40 percent), and is expected to be completed in February 2019. Fiscal 2016 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $461,142,760 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is being awarded afirm-fixed-price contract for the procurement of contractor logistics support, including commercial depot support and site support for the C-40A Clipper aircraft. Work will be performed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (36.32 percent); Fort Worth, Texas (13.81 percent); Whidbey Island, Washington (12.88 percent); Jacksonville, Florida (12.18 percent); North Island, California (12.50 percent); and Oceana, Virginia (12.31 percent), and is expected to be completed in March 2021. Fiscal 2016 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,964,825 are being obligated on this award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured by electronic request for proposals; three offers were received. The, is the contracting authority (N00019-16-D-0002)., is being awarded aundefinitized contract action against a previously awarded basic ordering agreement (N00019-14-G-0020) for the design, development, fabrication, integration, delivery, installation, and testing of the technical solution to enable full interoperability of the Distributed Mission Training capability for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. Work will be performed in Orlando, Florida (90 percent); and Fort Worth, Texas (10 percent), and is expected to be completed in March 2018. Fiscal 2016 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $7,239,945 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity. Pacific Storms NASA/NOAA NASAs RapidScat instrument spied tropical-storm-force winds in a weather system affecting the Pacific Northwestern U.S. and southwestern Canada on Sunday, March 6 and Monday, March 7. NOAAs GOES-West satellite provided an infrared look at the clouds associated with the system that blanketed the U.S. West Coast. Image: This NOAA GOES-West infrared image from Mar. 7 at 10:41a.m. EST (1541 UTC) shows the clouds associated with the weather system over the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Credits: NASA/NOAA GOES Project larger image In addition, NASAs Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) precipitation product added up the large rainfall totals that the west coast received from Feb. 29 to early March 7 as the latest system was bringing more rain and snow. RapidScat is a scatterometer instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station. It measures surface wind speeds and direction over open waters of oceans. Images from RapidScat data are made into images at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where the mission is managed. RapidScat saw sustained surface winds associated with a low pressure area near 46.9 mph (21 meters per second/75.6 kph) as it approached western Canada and the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast. Credits: RapidScat image Doug Tyler/NASA JPL On Sunday, March 6, 2016 from 2 to 4 p.m. EST (1900 to 2100 UTC), NASAs RapidScat instrument measured the surface winds over the Eastern Pacific Ocean that are associated with the low pressure area that neared U.S. Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada. RapidScat measured sustained surface winds near 46.9 mph (21 meters per second/75.6 kph) along the eastern and southern quadrants of the low pressure center. Those winds were affecting coastal areas of British Columbia, including Vancouver Island. Winds of that strength also extended along the coast of Washington State. An IMERG rainfall analysis from Feb. 29 to Mar. 7 showed heavy rainfall that occurred near the California and Oregon border over that eight-day period. Rainfall totals for this period were estimated by IMERG to be over 8 inches (203 mm) in some areas. Credits: NASA/JAXA/Hal Pierce On March 7, NOAAs GOES-West satellite captured an infrared image that showed the clouds associated with that low pressure area along the coast of the Pacific from the Northwest south to northern Baja California, Mexico. The low was centered near the border of Oregon and California and the associated cold front stretched to southern California. The image was created at NASA/NOAA GOES Project Office at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. At 10 a.m. EST, strongest sustained winds near 18.6 mph and gusting to 24.2 mph (30 kph gusting to 39 kph) appeared along the west central coast of British Columbia, Canada. Prince Rupert Airport, located on Kaien Island, Prince Rupert is a transportation hub. It is located about 800 miles (1,287 km) north of Vancouver. Further south, the winds were not as strong. At 10 a.m. EST the Vancouver International Airport in British Columbia, Canada reported light rain with winds from the east-northeast at 8 mph (13 kph). Seattle was reporting rain with sustained southerly winds near 10 mph and gusts to 21 mph. In Portland, Oregon the winds were from the south-southwest at 8 mph. On the southern end of the system the associated cold front has triggered many warnings an advisories from the Los Angeles to San Diego area. The National Weather Service in Los Angeles calls for heavy rain, heavy mountain snow, thunderstorms, very strong and gusty winds and flooding to the area on March 7. Along the coast, gale force winds are expected to affect the coastal waters. High surf will create very hazardous conditions in and near to the surf zone. Current warnings and advisories include a Winter Storm Warning, High Wind Warning, Flood Advisory, Wind Advisory, Gale Warning and High Surf Advisory. In San Diego, the advisories include a High Surf Warning, Coastal Flood Advisory, High Surf Advisory, Wind Advisory and a Beach Hazards Statement. Heavy rain, thunderstorms and hail are in the forecast. Winds are forecast from the west from 10 to 15 mph increasing to 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 35 mph. NOAAs National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center (WPC) in College Park, Maryland, noted in the forecast discussion issued on March 7 at 2:25 a.m. EST that the storm system brings a continuation of rain and mountain snow to the Pacific region. Thunderstorms are also possible. WPC said that Heavy snow is possible in areas of higher terrain, including the Sierras, San Gabriels, and the San Bernardino Mountains. Additional snowfall amounts of 5 to 10 inches are possible in these areas. Snow will also spread into the Great Basin by later today as the system moves inland. Northern California has been especially hard hit with heavy rainfall and strong winds being reported. Rain and snowfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains may help to alleviate the long-lasting California drought. An analysis of total precipitation from February 29 to March 7, 2016 was done at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, using data collected by IMERG, which creates a merged precipitation product from a Global Precipitation Measurement mission constellation of satellites. The analysis showed heavy rainfall that occurred near the California and Oregon border over that eight day period. Rainfall totals for this period were estimated by IMERG to be over 8 inches (203 mm) in some areas. For updated forecasts and warnings, visit the National Weather Service page at: www.weather.gov. Privacy statement: This blog does not share personal information with third parties nor do we store any information about your visit to this blog other than to analyze and optimize your content and reading experience through the use of cookies. You can turn off the use of cookies at anytime by changing your specific browser settings. We are not responsible for republished content from this blog on other blogs or websites without our permission. This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on January 1, 2017. If you have any questions feel free to contact Springfield Vermont News directly here: ed44vt@gmail.com Home espresso service is not our forte. Weve learned and deferred over the years from friends, home coffee enthusiasts, and especially from the experts at CoffeeGeek and HomeBarista.com, two of the internets liveliest forums for espresso equipment minutiae. Discovering more about this little subsection of the coffee world has been an ongoing education for us, and luckily weve got an industry pro right here in Portland Mark Hellweg, the founder and owner of Clive Coffee. Open since 2008, Clive Coffee is a seriously deep resource for making great coffee at home, with a focus on espresso. Their showroom is a palace of one-groups; writing for Eater PDX, our own Jordan Michelman described Clives interior aesthetic as if Don Draper and Bash from Bunheads opened a shop together. Their showroom is gorgeous, and this focus extends to their curated selection of home espresso machines, every one of which have been battle-tested and vetted to make the cut. Mr. Hellweg and his staff at Clive have taken a good, hard look at the one-group home espresso machine market, and whittled the available choices down to seven for the purpose of our guide. With prices that range from $600 to $6000 theres a machine out there for every level of interest, from the casual home user to the tech-boom startup office (we really missed the boat on that stuff). Heres 7 great home espresso machines, with help from our partners at Clive Coffee. Rancilio Silvia V3 Espresso Machine $629 The Honda Accord The Silvia is the only machine offered by Clive for less than $1000, and youre definitely going to sacrifice some functionality for that price. The drip tray for the Silvia is really shallow and gross to handle when full, and the machines single boiler requires you to brew coffee and steam milk separately. Its a great option for the casual, entry-level user, but might be frustrating for someone with cafe experience or serious home entertaining plans. More from Clive: In our opinion this is the best espresso machine available for under $1,000. Silvia is a solid, commercial grade machine offering reliability, clean design, and no cheap plastic parts. With a little bit of practice youll be pulling beautiful, thick espresso shots with ease.[/quote] Read customer reviews and specs via Clive Coffee. Breville Double Boiler BES900XL Espresso Machine $1199.95 The Hyundai The folks at Clive are clearly enamored with this machine, although it does have its drawbacks its made in China, and cant be serviced here in the United States. Its also not the most glamorous looking home espresso machine, but its functionality rivals top-end models in terms of temperature stability (a statement Mr. Hellweg has backed up with exhaustive testing). More from Clive: Espresso perfection requires precision temperature and pressure control, consistently, every time. At the heart of this machine is its Dual Stainless Steel Boiler heating system. The brew boiler, for the espresso shot, extracts to within 1C and a separate steam boiler, which offers instant and powerful steam on demand. So you can extract your shot, at the right temperature, delivering optimal flavour and steam your milk to cafe quality at the same time. Read customer reviews and machine specs. Quickmill Andreja Premium Espresso Machine $1795 The Mercedes S Class Its worth mentioning that this machine is gorgeous, with a classic Italian bistro feel and a certain ineffable sprezzatura. This is a best bet for the user who wants milk drink options but needs to stay within a mid-range price. If $2100 or so is in your budget, get the Andreja Premium and spend money on a great grinder, like the Baratza Vario W. More from Clive: Quickmills Andreja Premium is a compact, commercial-quality espresso machine with classic lines and a high-sheen stainless steel exterior. With its Ulka 52-watt vibratory pump, insulated copper boiler and E-61 commercial brew head, youll have all the power necessary to make velvety espresso and smooth foam for your cappuccinos and lattes. The pump and copper boiler work in tandem, allowing you to brew coffee and steam milk simultaneously while minimizing recovery time. Read customer reviews and see specs at Clive Coffee online. Quickmill Dual Boiler QM67 Espresso Machine $1899 The VW GTI Also from Quick Mill, the QM 67 is great for straight espresso. It has a double boiler and digital display PID, but the boilers are fairly small if you plan on entertaining and making multiple milk drinks at once, this might not be the best choice. But thats not to fault the machine itself; if you want to pull straight shot after straight shot, the QM 67 takes those turns nicely, and the price point still keeps you at around the $2200 sweet spot with a nice grinder. More from Clive: Quickmills new QM67 Double Boiler machine is a compact, commercial-quality espresso machine with classic lines and a high-sheen stainless steel exterior. With its Ulka 52-watt vibratory pump, dual copper boilers and E-61 commercial group head, you now have all the power necessary to make velvety espresso and smooth foam for your cappuccinos and lattes. Read customer reviews and specs. Izzo Alex Duetto II Espresso Machine $2250 The 7 Series Mark Hellweg described this machine, paired with a Baratza Vario ($449), as being a rock star set-up and its his favorite for brewing espresso shots in the Clive showroom. This machine has solid components, precise temperature control with PID, a very satisfying manual lever pull, and can be directly plumbed into a water line or tank. If you enjoy entertaining at home and want something to show off in your kitchen, this machine makes a great choice. Read reviews and specs for the Duetto. La Spaziale Vivaldi II Espresso Machine $2295 The Audi A6 The Vivaldi II has a great mid-century look and would be right at home at your Richard Neutra Palm Springs ranch house (just ignore the unfortunate Comic Sans type on the buttons). Featuring a good sized boiler and a non-insulated steam wand, this machine does great with milk, steaming up nice and easy and producing microfoam in around 15 seconds. Plus its volumetric: The Vivaldi II gives you programming features without the machine taking over too much control, quoth Mark. Over the years, the functionality of the Vivaldi has continually impressed the Clive staff. The model were showing here has the custom woodworking panels option, available as an optional add-on from Clive. All the wood work is done locally here in Portland; the walnut is domestic urban salvage, and the exotic woods are sustainable and responsibly sourced. Read reviews and specs for the Vivaldi II. La Marzocco GS/3 Paddle Espresso Machine $6,495 The Porsche [quote style=boxed]The La Marzocco GS/3 dramatically resets the gold standard for performance among all espresso machines. Its performance meets and surpasses the finest high volume machines on the market today. In surprisingly small footprint, with water reservoir or plumb-in options, the GS3 suits high-end home use and has sufficient steam power and performance for many commercial applications including restaurants, catering, and professional offices.[/quote] Ahh, the GS3. Its the grand dame of home espresso machines. Weve long dreamed of owning one, in the same way we dream of having one of those dot-com tech-boom offices with like, a ball pit and a silly slide and lots of Nerf toys. But the GS3 is not merely the stuff of dreams; lots of people have these machines at home or in their offices, and were super jealous of them. You can get your GS3 from Clive with total matching wood customization modern birch, classic walnut, exotic zebra wood, you pick, and theyll do up your side panels and portafilter handle in matching customized glory. This is the perfect machine for your event-specific seasonal pop-up / stay-put walk-up nanocafe. Read reviews and see specs via Clive Coffee. The website warns that sexual violence including sexual coercion, sexual abuse, and rape are crimes, and those who commit them can be severely punished for it. The authorities argue that such an educational platform is needed as many of Germanys million-plus refugees have never received this information. But the site has provoked a backlash both from the far-right parties, which dismiss it as a waste of taxpayers money, and the migrants themselves angered by being viewed as uneducated savages. Sex assaults were reported in European countries on New Year's Eve. Hundreds of women in Cologne were reportedly robbed, threatened and sexually assaulted by small groups of aggressive men, allegedly mostly of Arab and North African origin. Several similar incidents were reported on the same day in Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Berlin. Same attacks were also reported in Finland, Belgium, Austria, Denmark and Sweden. Europe is struggling to find a solution to the large refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety and refuge in Europe. The EU border agency Frontex detected over 1.55 million illegal border crossings in 2015. According to Prof. Dr. Christine Schirrmacher, young female Germans convert to Islam in two cases: if they marry a Muslim or feel too uncomfortable in a chaotic, poorly structured modern society. Islam gives them an unambiguous set of rules and norms of behavior. Many well-educated women, working in Germany in a bank or pharmacy, say that the hijab and Islam are important to them primarily as a protection against external threats. Whether these threats are real or invented by propagandists is another question. Reason 3: Influence of the Internet, Social Networks Another important factor in this context is the influence of the Internet and social media. Germany and other European countries are seriously concerned about the active and efficient use of the Internet and social networks by Daesh (Islamic State) and other terrorist groups. Ads published by Daesh depict attractive young girls wearing black clothes and holding weapons, marching or driving luxury military cars. "This could be more than romantic and attractive to young Western women," Prof. Dr. Susanne Schroter, head of the Global Islam research center in Frankfurt wrote. The problem is that women often don't understand that behind the attractive pictures there is nothing else but propaganda. "They don't even think of the fact that this is all just a performance for the public. Women in Islamic State can't participate in the fighting by definition. They can go to heaven only if they strictly follow the will of their husbands." Reason 4: Desire for Adventure Women leaving their homeland and joining radical groups overseas represent mentally and socially diverse groups, Schroeter said. "Many of them try to realize their desire for adventures with perseverance worthy of a better cause. There are also a lot of fanatics among them who are ready at any price to fight for the idea they were infected with. Some are inspired by the desire to participate in the fateful transformation of the world, and they are even ready to sacrifice their lives for this. However, being in Syria, they understand that nobody expects from them military exploits. They only need to bear the Islamic population and care for their husbands," the expert explained. Some parents have already reported "incidents" concerning small children who were too shy to express their needs and preferred to stay in class. Parents of elder pupils also criticized the new measure. "The young women should be able to easily use the toilet during their periods," the mother of a teenage girl said. The measure has, of course, its prehistory. In this way, the school management reacts to frequent cases of vandalism in the school. "We will certainly not keep the measure forever. We will regularly check, if it is still necessary," the school's representative Simon Thiriet said. This is not the first incident of that kind in Switzerland. In 2014, a school in Geneva banned male students aged 12 to 15 years from using the toilet during class. The explanation for the measure was as following: They should learn to restrain "their human needs during the 45 minutes a lesson lasts". Fourth, recently the Kurdish problem has entered the new stage, and the situation in south-eastern Turkey can be described as a lukewarm civil war between Turkish troops and Kurdish forces. Furthermore, the conflict in Syria is influencing Ankaras foreign and domestic policy. Finally, the political prospects of the ruling Justice and Development Party (founded by Recep Tayyip Erdogan) are vague in the current environment. Erdogan and the Turkish military In his report presented at the Carnegie Moscow Center, Shlykov analyzed the question: is a military coup possible in Turkey? Active involvement of the military in political processes has been part of Turkish history. In the 2000s, Erdogan announced the reforming of relations between the military and civic institutions. Under his political course, the military would not dictate its policy to the government. A military coup in Turkey would be possible if three criteria are met simultaneously: further deepening of the political crisis, a rising external threat, and the spike escalation of the Kurdish issue. And currently, all of the above is evident, according to the analyst. After Ankara suspended the peace process with Turkish Kurds Erdogan had to form some kind of a tactical alliance with the military elite who he oppressed in 2007-2008. The cooperation between Erdogan and the military became obvious in autumn 2015, during a military operation in south-eastern regions mostly inhabited by Kurds. At the time, Ankara gave a blank cheque to the army command. In order to take advantage of the situation, Erdogan admitted that his previous policy toward the military was wrong. Moreover, he found a scapegoat for his "mistakes" exiled Turkish preacher Fethulah Gulen currently residing in Pennsylvania. The first bullets flew within just meters from us. The Syrian soldiers began shouting to us to lie down and we crawled towards them, the correspondent recalled. The shelter was not the best, and the armored vehicles moved back to the defense line. We clung to the ground, ears ringing from the continuous gunfire. Syrian soldiers were on the front line firing densely to cover their colleagues, so that those could take a comfortable position. The fire from the opposite heights only intensified. A tank drew closer to us and fired. There was no time to cover our ears. An enormous amount of dust was raised and for a moment it seemed that the fighting has stopped. I saw that my neighbors in the shelter were in the same state. I only had time to notice that the soldier was trying to say something when the next fire was shot, the correspondent said. Judging from the intensity of the battle, both sides understood how important this territory was. The terrorists of Daesh need the Damascus-Palmyra territory on which al-Quaryatayn is situated. The Army plans to cut off the supply of Daesh from the vicinity of al-Quaryatayn into Palmyra. The city, according to Syrian intelligence is completely empty; the insurgents have concentrated their forces in the surrounding areas. We regularly inspect the area with the help of a drone. Al-Quaryatayn is the cheese in a mousetrap. There's absolutely no one, the enemy has concentrated its forces on the heights and in the canyons outside the city. They are using the mountain chain of the city to support the Palmyra front, Lt. of Syrian Special Forces said. Continuing his narration, the correspondent noted how that night in the desert makes everything look sinister. Silence made everyone nervous. If you look into the black desert, it seems like silhouettes of dozens of people were approaching in our direction quickly and silently, disappearing and appearing closer and closer. Adrenaline was inspiring worst scenario assumptions. There's nobody here, if you look into the wilderness for long, the imagination paints the most incredible picture of ghosts. Although Russia has been hit by the slump in oil prices it has remained "standing tall" and proven "to be more resilient that Saudi Arabia which produces nothing else besides hydrocarbons, and is fully dependent on cheap labor from Asia," the scientist stresses. Lvov draws attention to the fact that in 2016 it turns out that Riyadh has nearly run out of money being unable to pay working migrants enough for their jobs. Other oil-dependent Gulf kingdoms are now in the same boat as Saudi Arabia. "To make matters worse, migrant workers are becoming increasingly frustrated with the Persian Gulf states," he notes, warning that the proportion of local populations versus migrants in Gulf monarchies can result in social turmoil. "In Qatar, there are seven migrant workers for every one native, while in the UAE this level hovers at a level of six-to-one. And it's safe to say that the army or police will find themselves helpless if hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets. In fact, a threat of 'revolution' hangs in the air," Lvov writes. But it is not the whole story. In one of his latest articles for the same resource, American political analyst Phil Butler posed a question whether Saudi Arabia's oil business is going bust. According to the US political analyst, there are clear signs of Riyadh's running out of crude. "The Ghawar Field, largest in the world, is running out after about 65 years of continuous production. Reports the Saudi Aramco will be starting the CO2-EOR process to extract the last of the field's oil, they tell us this field will be depleted totally soon," Butler emphasized. Only six countries currently recognize Crimea as a part of Russia, while many Western powers continue to assert that the peninsula was "annexed." But somehow, when Western news outlets portray the "annexation" as an act of aggression by Russia, they tend to forget the events which preceded the referendum, McGovern noted during the broadcast. Various international powers, including Russia, had an agreement with the Ukrainian opposition that the continuous violence would end, that there would be diminution of presidential powers, earlier elections would be held and there would be increased regional autonomy. However, on February 22, 2014, the country's parliament was driven out by a coup, and neo-Nazis seized power forcing Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych to flee. "It started on the 22nd of February with the coup, not on the 23d with Putin's reaction," McGovern said. Earlier, Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for China's National People's Congress said that Russian-Chinese cooperation will continue to develop in a healthy way despite any possible external factors. [The relations with Russia] are at the highest level of development in the history of our bilateral relations. External factors will not have any impact on them, they will continue to develop in a healthy way, because it corresponds to the interests of the two countries, the spokeswoman said at a press conference. Moscow and Beijing efficiently cooperate within the existing economic and banking projects, striving to increase bilateral trade. Among the venues of economic cooperation are the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS New Development Bank, the Silk Road infrastructure fund, and the China-Russia Expo. In late January, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that relations between Russia and China had reached their highest level ever. HM King Mohammed VI Expected to Visit Russia Soon Contact: K.Drawi, 240-994-2476ROCKVILLE, Md., March 11, 2016 / Standard Newswire / -- HM King Mohammed VI will pay an official visit to Russia on Sunday, the Ministry of Royal Household, Protocol and Chancellery announced Friday.During this visit, the Sovereign will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the ministry underlined in a statement, adding that the two Heads of State will chair a signing ceremony of several bilateral agreements.On this occasion, the King will also meet with several high ranking Russian officials.This visit is designed to give a strong impetus to the development and quality of bilateral relations and to deepen the strategic partnership between Russia and Morocco.The last time King Mohammed VI was on an official visit to Moscow was in 2002, when a bilateral declaration on a strategic partnership was signed.Morocco is Russia's top trade partner in Africa and the Arab world. The kingdom is the largest Arab and African exporter of agricultural products and textiles to the Russian Market. IT WAS a striking move from a country better known for hiding iffy foreign wealth than for exposing it. Frustrated by a lack of co-operation from Malaysian counterparts, Switzerlands attorney-general declared in late January that there were serious indications that $4 billion had gone astray from Malaysian state concerns, some of it into accounts held by current or former Malaysian and Middle Eastern officials. The announcement fuelled an already combustible scandal that has transfixed Malaysians, battered their prime minister, Najib Razak, and could yet ensnare banks around the world. The allegations of misappropriation centre on a Malaysian state investment fund, from which it is suspected that large sums were siphoned by businessmen and officials with links to Mr Najib. It is thought that some of this was used to help his party win an election in 2013; some was spent on buying assets at questionable prices; and some of the remainder was moved to offshore shell companies and bank accounts. All those suspected of involvement, including Mr Najib, deny wrongdoing. None has been charged with a crime. The affair spans the globe. Caught up in it are not only Malaysian officials and moneymen but also several big banks and perhaps Saudi royalty. The money trail leads from Malaysia to Singapore and elsewhere in Asia, Abu Dhabi, Switzerland, the Caribbean and New York. Authorities are investigating in Switzerland, America, Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. They face a daunting challenge in piecing together such a complex case, a task made harder by operators widespread use of opaque offshore vehicles. The storys institutional protagonist is 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). It was originally a regional development fund for Terengganu, an oil-rich Malaysian state, but in 2009 the countrys finance ministry took it over and rebranded it. Mr Najib heads the ministry, as well as being prime minister. The plan was for the fund to suck in investment through tie-ups with foreign firms. Mr Najib chairs 1MDBs board of advisers. 1MDB got most of its financing by raising debt. A series of bond issues pushed its borrowings up to $11 billion. By 2014 questions were multiplying about its financial health, spurred by the fact that it had had three audit firms in five years. A flurry of investigations in the media drew on leaked documents. 1MDB denies wrongdoing. Malaysian investigators concluded that deposits into a bank account held in Mr Najibs name came through banks and companies linked to 1MDB. They found that a firm that was once part of 1MDB and is now controlled by the finance ministry, SRC International, paid $13m into the account in 2014-15. The attorney-general, Mohamed Apandi Ali, has said that there is no evidence that Mr Najib was aware of the payment. (We all overlook items on our bank statements.) More eye-catching was an earlier payment into Mr Najibs account, of $681m, from a shell company. This was made only weeks before the general election in 2013, which Mr Najib won narrowly. Some say it was linked to 1MDB. The official explanation is that it was a legal donation from an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family. Mr Najib has denied ever taking public money for personal gain. 1MDB says it has not paid any funds into the prime ministers personal accounts. On March 1st the Wall Street Journal reported that investigators in two countries, whom it didnt identify, believe that more than $1 billion in total flowed into Mr Najibs personal accounts, much of it originating from 1MDB. These investigators, it is alleged, reckon that the payments were, in part, routed through a company linked toor made to look as if it was linked toa venture involving 1MDB and Middle Eastern interests. 1MDB had various dealings with an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign fund called IPIC which guaranteed some of 1MDBs bonds. The dealings included a tie-up with Aabar Investments PJS, an IPIC subsidiary. 1MDB transferred more than $1 billion to what appeared to be a division of Aabar. Yet investigations allegedly suggest the money in fact went to a firm based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) with an almost identical name to the Abu Dhabi concern. This transaction seems not to have been recorded on the books of Aabars parent, IPIC. (1MDB says it stands by its own accounts, which show the payment.) The suspicion is that financial sleight-of-hand may have been used to pass off the transfers as legitimate payments between corporate partners. Investigators believe much of this money ended up in Mr Najibs accounts after being routed through a second company in the BVI, according to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal. IPIC is reported to be looking into what happened to the money paid out by 1MDB but not booked as coming into the Abu Dhabi fund. Aabar denies wrongdoing. Also in the spotlight is a joint venture between 1MDB and PetroSaudi, an oil firm. 1MDB injected $1 billion into the venture. Two-thirds of this was moved to a Seychelles-based firm shortly afterwards, according to a draft report by Malaysias auditor-general. 1MDB later sold its interest in the venture, using some of the $2.3 billion raised to invest in a Cayman-based vehicle. 1MDB then reportedly sacked its auditor, KPMG, after the firm expressed concern over the identity and financial standing of the vehicles owners. 1MDB asserts that all the Cayman money is accounted for. PetroSaudi has denied doing anything wrong. Investigators are also looking into who drove 1MDBs complex transactions. Assuming it is genuine, correspondence obtained by Sarawak Report, an investigative website, appears to show that a key figure in the funds dealings with PetroSaudi was a Malaysian financier, Low Taek Jho, a family friend of Mr Najib. Mr Low reportedly also helped direct some election spending for Mr Najibs ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional. 1MDB and Mr Low have insisted he merely advised the fund, unpaid. He denies wrongdoing. Banks, too, face awkward questions. Several global banks handled large payments that are under scrutiny, among them arms of JPMorgan Chase and Royal Bank of Scotland. One question is whether there were grounds for the banks to suspect that any of the transactions were questionableor whether especially rigorous checks on public officials and other politically exposed persons, or PEPs, were called for and carried out. The role played by Goldman Sachs is also notable. The investment bank led 1MDBs main bond issues, earning unusually high fees on them (Goldman has said this is because it temporarily held the risk on its own balance-sheet). Goldmans chairman for South-East Asia, Tim Leissner, grew close to Malaysias elite. Last year Goldman put him on leave and now says he has left the firm. Mr Najibs response to the scandal has been to swipe at his critics. Muhyiddin Yassin, a deputy prime minister who wanted investigations stepped up, was sacked from the cabinet last year, and the attorney-general was replacedsupposedly on health grounds, though Sarawak Report has published documents appearing to show that charges were about to be brought against Mr Najib. On February 27th Mr Muhyiddin called for the prime minister to resign, saying the outgoing attorney-general had shown him proof that Mr Najib acted criminally in connection with 1MDB. The government said this was part of a politically motivated conspiracy to topple Mr Najib. The new attorney-general, Mr Apandi, has moved swiftly to exonerate Mr Najib, closing a probe into the $681m donation and asserting that it had nothing to do with 1MDB. The government says that most of the money was sent back to the donor after the election. Why, some ask, was so much of the payment returned if it was legal? Not all Malaysias institutions have been supine. Last year the central bank urged the attorney-general to begin a criminal prosecution of 1MDB managers after concluding that the fund had moved $1.8 billion overseas based on inaccurate disclosures. This money was supposed to go to the PetroSaudi joint venture and related loans. Instead, much of it went elsewhere and is unaccounted for, according to the auditor-generals draft report. (The final report was supposed to be released last December, but has twice been delayed.) The central bank requested a review of the finding by Mr Apandi that 1MDB did not commit any offences. This was rejected. Malaysias anti-corruption commission, an independent agency, investigated the payments into Mr Najibs account and handed its findings to Mr Apandi late last year. He returned them to the commission in January, requesting more information. The commission has denied reports, based on unauthorised briefings, that it recommended charging Mr Najib. It was the haste with which Mr Apandi ruled out criminality that prompted the sharper tone from the Swiss authorities, who are investigating suspected bribery, corruption, misconduct in public office and money-laundering linked to 1MDB. They appear to be unimpressed with the blanket exoneration, though they say Mr Najib is not a suspect. Through a brass plate, darkly Singapore is also investigating suspected money-laundering and says it has frozen a large number of bank accounts. The case is a test of the city-states resolve in dealing with financial crime. Like Hong Kong, it has seen big inflows of wealth in recent years, including money of dubious provenance from Switzerland. But the sleuths face many hurdles. The corporate secrecy offered by offshore centres makes the task of penetrating structures used to move money slow and difficult. The OECD and others have begun to try to lift this shroud, but transparency reforms are at an early stage. Then there is the complex and clunky international system of mutual legal assistance, or MLA, under which countries ask each other for help in investigations. Piecing together the jigsaw is all the harder if the country at the centre of the probe is unhelpful. Malaysia has said it will assist the Swiss, but that looks unlikely. Indeed, it is using blocking tactics, for instance by telling Switzerland to file its MLA request through Malaysias foreign ministry. That is unusual: such requests would more typically go through the justice ministry, which is viewed abroad as less political. This Web site is designed to provide information on the subject of personal finance. It is provided with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services by providing this web site. The authors and publisher shall not be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. As each individual situation is unique, questions relevant to personal finances and specific to the individual should be addressed to an appropriate professional to ensure that the situation has been carefully and appropriately evaluated. Seven Longview residents were displaced by a fire that likely destroyed their home at 293 28th Avenue early Friday morning. Longview firefighters were clearing an emergency medical call in the same area when the fire was reported shortly after 4:30 a.m. Crews were able to get to the blaze within minutes, however the fire had already spread throughout the single-family home. All residents four adults and three children were able to evacuate, said Longview Fire Chief Phil Jurmu. Firefighters were able to put the fire out in about 30 minutes. The cause of the fire still was unknown later in the day Friday. One person was treated for smoke exposure and was admitted to an area hospital for an unrelated medical condition, according to a press release. Residents of the home told fire investigators that the blaze started in the former garage, which had been converted into a bedroom. Officials said the residents tried to put out the fire before calling 911. Investigators are still working to determine the cause of the fire. The home was equipped with smoke alarms but its not clear if they were working, according to the press release. Friends of the people displaced by the fire are seeking donations of nonperishable food items and clothes by dropping them off this weekend at Lexis Pizza Pub, 1613 West Side Highway in Lexington. Clothes are especially needed for a 10-year-old girl (size medium), 13 year-old girl (large, size 12/14 or junior small), 6-year-old boy (7/8 or 9/10) and mom (XL). Update: The address in this story was corrected. A previous version incorrectly listed the address as 298 28th Avenue. Initial reports also said the fire was put out in 15 minutes. This has been changed to 30 minutes as reported in an updated release from fire officials. Miles Gilchrist landed on the Greek island of Lesbos on New Years Eve. The next day, alongside other volunteers, he carried life vests up the side of a mountain laid them out in a pattern to send a very large message a peace sign to greet refugees from the Syrian civil war as they entered Europe. The R.A. Long High School sophomore never had plans to step into the tragedy. But when he heard his stepmother was flying to Greece to lend a hand, he asked how he could help. Two weeks later, he was on a flight with her. He was down at his dads and he sent me a text message that said, We need to have a serious talk when I come back on Sunday, says Tami Retterath, Miles mom and registrar at R.A. Long. He said, I want to work at a Syrian refugee camp. I never wouldve guessed that in a million years. But she couldnt say no. I knew it could be a game changer for him to have that opportunity. Miles, 15, spent the next two weeks distributing clothes at the Moria refugee camp. He says 24 migrant boats landed in one night alone. He saw Syrians soaked to the bone after their trip through the Mediterranean and says he could see the sadness in their eyes. You can learn whatever you can over here but you really dont know whats actually happening over there, Miles says. I saw love, I saw compassion, I saw kindness. On Sunday Miles is giving a presentation on his experiences at the Longview Community Church alongside Dr. Hazar Jaber, a Longview dentist who grew up in the Syrian capital of Damascus. She still has family in Syria. Jaber says she thinks people misunderstand the refugee crisis and the people who suffer the most. Seeing the migrants up close, Jaber says, was an amazing opportunity for Miles to better understand the situation. Weve also gone to Jordan and weve taken people with us, and they have changed their view on what needs to happen and what the crisis looks like, Jaber says. The UN estimates that nearly 140,000 migrants half of whom Syrian have entered Greece so far this year. Three out of five enter through Lesbos. Miles stepmother, Jerin Boyer, coordinates for nonprofit Marhacar. Boyer says the organization has 10 coordinators around the world and focuses on delivering needed goods to refugee camps and warehouses. For me the bottom line is, this is a humanitarian crisis, Jaber says. Humans on this Earth should be concerned with this crisis because its not affecting a hundred people, its not affecting a thousand its affecting millions of people. According to the BBC, more than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each otheras well as jihadist militants from the so-called Islamic State. After high school Miles plans to be a teacher, a passion he found as part of the AVID college prep program. He says like the camps that give refugees a second chance at life, he wants to provide people with a chance at an education. Retterath, however, says she wouldnt be surprised if he got more involved in humanitarian work. Who knows a lot can happen in two years, she says. A lot can happen in two weeks. Miles and other volunteers called a group of refugees they helped their starfish family, based on the story of a boy who walked on the shores of the beach throwing starfish back into the water. Unable to save every starfish that was left stranded on the shores, the boy knew he still made a difference to the one he just threw into the water. So he kept doing it. Miles says he would love the chance to go back to a refugee camp, but he hopes he wont have to. Hopefully this problem is going to be solved before I have a second chance to go. hidden Google is about to embark on an old-school search, swapping its Internet algorithm for a custom-built van that will cruise across the US to find out how people use its online services and react to new features. The white van emblazoned with Google's colourful logo and an invitation to "shape the future" of the world's most powerful Internet company is scheduled to pull out Monday on a six-week road trip. Google is using the van to help it break out of its Silicon Valley bubble. The van will make multiday stops in seven states, stopping near colleges, libraries, parks and some of Google's own regional offices in hopes of finding out how average Americans are using the company's multitude of digital offerings. hidden Jobs in the Indian IT sector are likely to remain stable at least till 2020 as per a report from World Economic Forum, Parliament was informed on Friday. "According to a research report from WEF released recently, jobs in India's IT sector are likely to remain stable at least up to 2020," IT and Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha. Prasad further said according to Nasscom, the Indian information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITeS) industry continues to be the largest private sector employer and a net hirer of personnel and employs about 3.7 million people. "Further, as per Nasscom-Mckinsey study 'Perspective 2015', about 1.2-2 million people will be added to the IT-ITeS workforce by 2020," the minister said. Ravi Shankar Prasad earlier this month said that rise in revenues of BSNL and MTNL lag those of private players because of less aggressive market skills, legacy manpower and delay in augmentation of mobile network. The minister said both the state-run firms are taking several steps to enhance revenues. BSNL revenue increased by 2.32 percent in 2014-15 to Rs. 28,645 crores whereas MTNL witnessed an increase of 0.90 percent to Rs. 3,821 crores for the same period. The revenue of BSNL stood at Rs. 27,996 crores in 2013-14 while that of MTNL was Rs. 3,787 crores. PTI hidden The Karnataka government on Friday seized 62 two-wheeler taxis belonging to app-based cab aggregator Uber for violating the Motor Vehicles Act and continuing to operate without requisite permission. "We have seized 62 Uber bikes (two-wheeler taxis, uberMOTO) today (Friday) for operating illegally. We will take stern action against them (Uber) in accordance with the Motor Vehicles Act.," Karnataka Transport Commissioner Rame Gowda told IANS. Gowda pointed out that white number plated UberMOTO two-wheelers do not comply with the rules and the drivers also lack a badge which a commercial vehicle driver should have. The transport commissioner clarified that any commercial vehicle must first make an application to the Road Transport Authority (RTA) in their respective district or area to start business operations. He said a committee including the deputy commissioner of a particular district or area as the chairman, RTO as the secretary and SP or DCP as the member will consider the application and deal with it according to the requirement. "Without doing all these things, it is an illegal operation. Everybody should know what they (Uber) are doing, what business they are doing, how they are conducting," said Gowda. "Let them follow the rules, we are not coming in their way. It should be transparent. If anything goes wrong ultimately who is responsible. It is not fair on their (Uber) part," Gowda told IANS. On being asked if there would be any monetary penalty on Uber, Gowda said the court will decide. According to media reports, Uber's rival Ola stopped its version of two-wheeler taxis Ola Bike which was also confirmed by Gowda leading to only Uber two-wheeler taxis being seized on Friday. Despite several attempts by IANS to elicit the reasons for halting the two-wheeler taxi services and whether it received a notice from the government, Ola did not respond. Interestingly, IANS succeeded in booking and cancelling an Uber two-wheeler taxi from the Bengaluru Press Club near Cubbon Park in the heart of the city. The app confirmed a bike taxi to IANS reporter being operated by one Harish using a Bajaj Platina motorcycle to deliver the service. On being asked if Uber informed the driver that the two-wheeler taxi service he is listed for is currently illegal, Harish, the bike driver said: "Uber did not inform me that the service is illegal." He disconnected the call on being questioned further while Uber did not respond to IANS despite several attempts. Uber and Ola launched pilot on-demand two-wheeler taxi services uberMOTO and Ola Bike, respectively, on March 3. Ola Bike later stopped its services and even removed the option to book a bike taxi on its app. UberMOTO's minimum fare is pegged at Rs. 15 per km followed by Rs. 3 per km and Re. 1 per minute of travel. IANS hidden Tens of thousands of Poles took to Facebook Thursday to support the country's top court in a constitutional battle against the right-wing government. The EU country has been mired in crisis over a government bid to change how the Constitutional Court reaches its decisions, in a move that has sparked outrage at home and abroad. A new law raised the bar needed for court rulings from a simple majority to a two-thirds majority of justices, while also requiring 13 judges to be present for the most contentious cases instead of nine as before. But the court itself on Wednesday struck down the ruling as unconstitutional, pitting it against the government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) Party, which dismissed its judgement. Nearly 54,000 users shared the constitutional court verdict on a dedicated Facebook site in the 24 hours after it was handed down. The campaign urged Prime Minister Beata Szydlo to publish the verdict in Poland's Journal of Laws, a move that would render it binding. With public anger growing, an impromptu street protest attracted around a thousand people, including opposition party members, Thursday evening outside the cabinet office in Warsaw. Protesters used a projector to light up the building's facade with a copy of the Polish constitution. A day earlier they did the same with a copy of the verdict. "A government that ignores court rulings, is quite simply undemocratic. It's putting itself above the constitution," Warsaw resident Magdalena Mikula-Mayer, 39, told AFP. Szydlo had dismissed the verdict even before it was delivered, saying: "The statement that will be delivered by some of the judges of the Constitutional Court will not be a verdict in the legal sense of the term." 'Iranian ayatollah' Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski on Thursday likened the top court's Chief Justice Andrzej Rzeplinski, a respected jurist who handed down the ruling, to an "Iranian ayatollah". The government's refusal to abide by the judgement has set Poland on a collision course with the European Union, which launched an investigation into the reforms in January. Warsaw could now face punitive measures over the situation. Poland also said Thursday it would dispute a draft report by the Venice Commission a body of legal experts within the Council of Europe warning that the court reforms put democracy, human rights and the rule of law at risk. The commission is due to publish its official report by Saturday. Although the Council of Europe's findings are not binding, the European Union is likely to review them as part of its own unprecedented probe into the rule of law in Poland. Opposition parties have claimed that the government's determination to force through the changes risks undermining democracy in the ex-communist nation of 38 million people. "If the government doesn't abide by the constitutional court's ruling soon, we're dealing with the biggest crisis in the history of the republic and a constitutional coup d'etat," said Ryszard Petru, leader of the liberal Modern opposition party. PiS has "fundamentally violated the constitution. Its contempt for the separation of powers... allows me to say without hesitation that democracy has stopped functioning in Poland," Radoslaw Markowski, a political scientist linked to Poland's Academy of Sciences, told AFP. "There is no rule of law. Checks and balances on power are gone," he added. AFP This Blog was born during the Troubles of 2007, and thereafter continued as a weekly update on our life and thought within the work of Testimony Faith Homes, a 'home from home' for Kenya orphaned and destitute children,. Are you wondering where to start? https://issuu.com/bryanthaoworra is one place where I have many examples online to sample my poetry... This year marks the 25th anniversary since the death of Konerak Sinthasomphone, a 14-year old boy killed by Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey ... Special Sponsorship This activity was made possible in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008. How children learn a second language Linda Halgunseth : In the 1970s, my early childhood provider advised my immigrant Mexican American mother to stop speaking Spanish with me at home. They were concerned because, as a 2 year old, I was not as verbal as my peers. Worried that she was causing me harm, my mother immediately stopped speaking to me in Spanish. I was not alone in this experience. Back then, it was a common assumption that exposure to more than one language would confuse young children and could lead to developmental delays (Espinosa, 2008; Tabors, 2008). Research on dual language development has grown substantially since the 1970s. Information on the dual language process and the numerous benefits for young children is now more readily available. My experience and the experience of many other children of immigrants highlight the importance of providing parents with up-to-date, high quality research so they can make the best decisions for their children. How do children learn a second language? In general, there are two ways in which children may learn a second language: simultaneously or sequentially (McLaughlin et al., 1995; Tabors, 2008). Simultaneous Second Language Learning Simultaneous learners include children under the age of 3 who are exposed to two languages at the same time. These children may include those who are exposed to one language by parents at home and another language by providers in their early childhood program. Simultaneous learners are also young children whose parents each speak separate languages to them at home (e.g., mother speaks Spanish to child, father speaks Chinese to child). Before 6 months of age, simultaneous learners learn both languages at similar rates and do not prefer one language over the other. This is because they build separate but equally strong language systems in their brains for each of the languages they hear. These separate systems allow children to learn more than one language without becoming confused. In fact, the pathways infants develop in their brains for each of the languages they hear are similar to the single pathway developed by children who are only exposed to English. At 6 months, children begin to notice differences between languages and may begin to prefer the language they hear more. This means that parents must be careful to provide similar amounts of exposure to both languages; otherwise, children may begin to drop vocabulary of the language to which they are less exposed (Espinosa, 2008; Kuhl, 2004; Kuhl et al., 2006; Tabors, 2008). Cognitive Benefits of Simultaneous Language Development There are many cognitive benefits for young children who are simultaneously exposed to more than one language. For example, they have greater neural activity and denser tissue in the areas of the brain related to memory, attention, and language than monolingual learners. These indicators are associated with long-term positive cognitive outcomes for children (Bialystok 2001, Mechelli et al., 2004; Kovelman, Baker, & Petitto, 2006). Sequential Second Language Learners Sequential learners include children who have become familiar with one language, but are then introduced or required to learn a second language. The classic example of sequential learning is when a non-English speaking child enters an English-dominant classroom. Unlike simultaneous language learning, sequential learning of languages can occur at any age and can be influenced by factors like the child's temperament or motivation. The Four Stages of Sequential Second Language Learning Stage I: Home Language Use For the first few days, children may persist in using their first or native language even if others do not understand them. Stage II: Silent Period After children realize their first language is not working, they enter a silent period in which they barely speak and rely heavily on nonverbal means to communicate with others. The younger the child, the longer the silent period may last. Stage III: Telegraphic & Formulaic Speech Children will start to speak in the new or second language. In this stage, they will only speak in small utterances (e.g., Me Down) or by repeating the words of others. Stage IV: Productive Language Children are now ready to express their own thoughts and construct their own sentences. In the beginning, these sentences may be very basic or grammatically incorrect; however, this improves over time. Parents of dual language learners should not be alarmed if their children exhibit any of the above behaviors (e.g., silent period). These behaviors are common for children who are learning a second language. Also, research has found that children who begin to learn a second language before the age of 6 or 7 are more able to speak the new language like a native speaker than children who didn't start until after ages 6 or 7 (Bongaerts, 2005). The Multiple Benefits of Learning More Than One Language Research strongly supports the benefits of bilingualism in language, literacy, social, and cognitive development. For example, bilingual children have performed better than monolingual speakers on measures of analytical ability, concept formation, cognitive flexibility, and metalinguistic skills (Espinosa, 2008; Hakuta, Ferdman, & Diaz, 1987; Roseberry-McKibbin & Brice, 2005). While some teachers and parents believe that in order to succeed academically in the U.S. all children must learn English as quickly as possible, research demonstrates just the opposite. In fact, evidence suggests that children who continue to learn academic concepts in their native language while gradually learning English outperform academically and socially children who are immersed in English-only programs (Chang et al., 2007; Restrepo & Kruth, 2003). How Can Parents Support Dual Language Development? Ensure that the environments in which you introduce languages to children are nurturing-whether it is a school, early childhood program, or home (Tabors, 2008). Choose an education program that is accepting and supportive of dual language learning. If your child is learning a second language sequentially, select a program that allows children to continue to learn academic concepts in their native language as they gradually learn the second or new language (Copple & Bredekamp, 2008). Volunteer your time and/or skills in your child's classroom. This would allow dual language learners the opportunity to communicate in their home language during the day. Teach vocabulary or nursery rhymes in your native language to the class or teachers, extending opportunities to practice a second language to all children (Espinosa, 2008). Be prepared for the possibility that your children will express disinterest in their native language. Support your children's interest in maintaining their native language by talking to them about the importance of dual language development. Create fun family-oriented activities that will provide opportunities to converse in the home language, such as reading books, singing songs, or playing games together. Bring children to activities in which the demand to speak the home language is high, such as in extended family or community gatherings (Tabors, 2008). Parents play a crucial role in supporting their children's dual language development. It is a misconception that children are just "natural" learners who effortlessly store and maintain knowledge of languages. Dual language development requires the conscious effort, reinforcement, and support of parents, teachers, and family members (Tabors, 2008). (Linda C. Halgunseth, Ph.D. is the Coordinator of the Office of Applied Research at the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The goal of the Office is to bridge research, practice, and policy in the area of early childhood education.) The homework debate Johanna Sorrentino : Every school day brings something new, but there is one status quo most parents expect: homework. The old adage that practice makes perfect seems to make sense when it comes to schoolwork. But, while hunkering down after dinner among books and worksheets might seem like a natural part of childhood, there's more research now than ever suggesting that it shouldn't be so. Many in the education field today are looking for evidence to support the case for homework, but are coming up empty-handed. "Homework is all pain and no gain," says author Alfie Kohn. In his book The Homework Myth, Kohn points out that no study has ever found a correlation between homework and academic achievement in elementary school, and there is little reason to believe that homework is necessary in high school. In fact, it may even diminish interest in learning, says Kohn. If you've ever had a late night argument with your child about completing homework, you probably know first-hand that homework can be a strain on families. In an effort to reduce that stress, a growing number of schools are banning homework. Mary Jane Cera is the academic administrator for the Kino School, a private, nonprofit K-12 school in Tucson, Arizona, which maintains a no-homework policy across all grades. The purpose of the policy is to make sure learning remains a joy for students, not a second shift of work that impedes social time and creative activity. Cera says that when new students are told there will be no homework assignments, they breathe a sigh of relief. Many proponents of homework argue that life is filled with things we don't like to do, and that homework teaches self-discipline, time management and other nonacademic life skills. Kohn challenges this popular notion: If kids have no choice in the matter of homework, they're not really exercising judgment, and are instead losing their sense of autonomy. At the Kino school, Cera says children often choose to take their favorite parts of school home. "A lot of what we see kids doing is continuing to write in journals, practicing music with their friends, and taking experiments home to show their parents," she says. Anecdotal information from Kino graduates suggests that the early control over their education continues to serve them well into college; they feel better equipped to manage their time and approach professors with questions. Standardized testing One of the reasons that we continue to dole out mountains of homework, Kohn says, is our obsession with standardized tests. This concern is especially relevant with the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results placing American students 25th in math and 21st in science. "The standards and accountability craze that has our students in its grip argues for getting tougher with children, making them do more mindless worksheets at earlier ages so that we can score higher in international assessments," Kohn says. "It's not about learning; it's about winning." Even if we can agree on the importance of kids doing better on tests like PISA, Kohn says, there is no research to suggest that homework is our ticket to success. Our "competitors" in the global marketplace are coming up with the same conclusions about homework. A recent comparative study of kids in China, Japan and two U.S. cities shows there is no correlation between time spent on studying and academic achievement. How much is too much? So, what's the solution? The National Parent Teacher Association suggests children in kindergarten through second grade should do homework for no more than 10 to 20 minutes a day, and for third through sixth graders the limit is 30-60 minutes a day. Kohn says the question isn't just, "How much homework is too much?" Many parents would be delighted if teachers reduced the amount their children are getting, but he says the quality of those assignments needs to be addressed as well. "Some of this stuff isn't worth two minutes of their children's time," he says. Kohn believes that the "default" setting for schools should be no homework, but that if evening work was assigned on occasion, it better be for a good reason. That means repetitive practice problems from 500-page textbooks get tossed out the window. Instead, Kohn says parents should be asking two fundamental questions: Does this assignment make kids more excited about the topic and learning in general? Does this assignment help kids to think more deeply about questions that matter? What you can do For parents who want to probe deeper into the quality of homework their child is getting, Kohn says the first step is to check the school's policy. In the case where poorly designed homework is being given, it's time to talk to the teacher, sit down with the principal, write a letter to the editor, and/or speak up at the next school board meeting. "It makes sense to do this with other parents," he says. "Ten parents saying that homework does more harm than good are hard to ignore." Wherever the homework debate goes next, be it the front pages or on the back burner, it's worth taking a moment to examine if we're asking the right questions about our children's education. The good news is, it's never too late to start. ACCA seminar held at EDU Chittagong Bureau : A day-long seminar on ACCA Degree was held at East Delta University campus in Chittagong aimed at more professional degree for the students of the university. The seminar was held at EDU Academic Bhaban at Pabartak crossing yesterday. Education Manager of ACCA Bangladesh chapter Proma Tapashi Khan presented the keynote paper in the seminar. Member of ACCA chapter in Bangladesh Al Khondakar apprised the concept of the course. Among others, Registrar of EDU Sajal Barua, Director of Networking Manjuma Majumder, coordinator of MBA course of School of Business Md. Asaduzzaman spoke on the occasion. Sonakshi Sinha in Guinness World Record Actress Sonakshi Sinha has become a Guinness World Records title-holder as she along with several other women participated in an initiative to set a record for 'most people painting their fingernails simultaneously'. The 28-year-old actress participated in the event on the occasion of International Women's Day on Tuesday. She collaborated with Inglot, manufacturers in colour cosmetics, and its Indian franchise partner Major Brands. "I am extremely thrilled to have been a part of this unique initiative on Women's Day. Achieving a Guinness World Records title is truly commendable and I would like to thank Inglot and Major brands for giving me the opportunity to create history along with thousands of other women," the "Lootera" actress said in a statement. At the event 1,328 women were seen simultaneously painting their nails with a range of Inglot O2M nail enamels. The women broke the previous record of 1,156 people painting nails simultaneously which was created by Taiwan Nail Association at Banqiao Stadium, New Taipei City, Taiwan on April 27, 2011. Jack Brockbank from Guinness World Records was present at the event to validate the record. Zbigniew Inglot, the company's Chairman of the Board of Directors, said, "It is wonderful to have achieved the Guinness World Records title in India for Inglot and Major Brands India." ?Indian Express The crux of current migration crisis William Lacy Swing : Human migration is as old as human history. In fact, in some places on our planet there are migrant routes that have been in continuous use for over 4,000 years. A research team of ours, from the International Organization for Migration, last month had the chance to meet some present-day migrants on one such pathway in Djibouti, a small nation dangling from the Horn of Africa. Through its mountain passes and deserts, pass even poorer people - Ethiopians, mainly, but also Somalis, Kenyans and Sudanese - trekking towards what one might envision as a kind of jobs oasis: the shimmering, booming petroleum exporting countries of the Persian Gulf. As in ancient times, humankind literally walks out of Africa, undertaking journeys that can take weeks or even months towards places where a family can earn enough from menial work to feed itself and plot a path to a better future. Imagine ancient tribes fleeing famine and finding sustenance building the great cities of Babylon or Egypt's pyramids. Imagine that, and imagine that today's wanderers are no different from what all of our common ancestors were, and forever will be. Except today we live, at least compared with ancient times, in a highly regulated society with rules and laws that sort today's migrants into categories like "documented" or "undocumented," "with permits" and without, or "irregular," as opposed to "legal." As all the world's migrants know - these labels obscure a simple truth. That is: people from rich countries - the European Union member states, say, or Japan, or most of North America - are able to travel legally almost everywhere. Those from the rest of the world are able to go, legally, almost nowhere. And therein lies the crux of humankind's current migration "crisis." A process that is as old, and as inevitable, as a person's choice to dream of a better future, is contradicted by a patchwork of rules and regulations designed to reverse such a process, which is impossible. This might be merely ironic if it weren't also so tragic. Consider Dawit Deresseh, an Ethiopian migrant our team encountered at a crossroads called Lac Assal in northern Djibouti. Deresseh, 30 and landless, had already crossed Djibouti twice in the last 12 months. He made one trip last year, seeking a boat that could take him to Yemen and then to a construction job in Saudi Arabia; this year he tried again, after he had spent nine months in a hospital in Hodeidah, Yemen, after losing half his left arm in an accident. He said he was riding in a smuggler's vehicle, carrying 27 pilgrims, which struck a landmine near the Saudi border. "All 27 came from Ethiopia," he told our IOM team. All the others were killed, he said. Incredibly, he was on his way back to Yemen for the third time when our team found him, and eventually persuaded him to return to Ethiopia, under IOM's Assisted Voluntary Repatriation and Reintegration program. That often includes a modest grant to help the returnee launch a small business. "A process that is as old, and as inevitable, as a person's choice to dream of a better future, is contradicted by a patchwork of rules and regulations designed to reverse such a process, which is impossible." Compared to 90,000 Ethiopians believed to have made this same journey in the past 12 months, this is a tiny success. But it speaks to two truths: one, that the lure of a reliable job, however menial, is enough to draw thousands of migrants like Deresseh to risk life and limb (literally, in this case) for a chance to succeed. The other: the cost of diverting migrants like this away from such dangers is as small as funding a vendor's stall in a market, or the purchase of a three-wheeled "bagga" - basically a motorcycle with a small flatbed for cargo attached - that can deployed to make small deliveries around town and can be a boon to small businesses looking to shuttle products to buyers, as well as feed an extended family of perhaps a dozen members. IOM does several things: advising migrants of their difficult journeys, encouraging them to seek legal pathways and advocating for means to enable them to make an income close to home. Their choice, their journey if you will, is also ours: We must all choose which journey humankind will take together - a safe one, where we create work with dignity close to a family's home, or the dangerous one, where migrants shoulder almost all the risk, and often lose all. Across Borders is a monthlong online conversation hosted by Devex and partners - World Vision, the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department, the U.S. nonprofit partner of the International Organization for Migration and United Nations Volunteers - to analyze and amplify the discussion on global migration and current refugee crises through the lens of global security, development cooperation and humanitarian aid work, and more. Visit the campaign site and join the conversation on social media tagging @devex and #AcrossBorders. (William Lacy Swing is director general of the International Organization for Migration, an organization that has been assisting migrants worldwide for the past 65 years). Another 4 kids missing in Habiganj 6 out of 19 missing children found dead: Cops to form special team to tackle situation Joynal Abedin Khan : At least 19 children, including four madrasah students, reportedly had gone missing in three upazilas of Habiganj district in recent days. Of the missing, four were found dead in Bahubal upazila while one each in Sadar and Shayesthaganj upazilas of the district, while the fate of other missing kids are still traceless. The family members of the victims and experts on child rights alleged that the district is being turned into a 'risky place for children' due to lack of social awareness as well as proper security measures by members of the law enforcing agencies. Meanwhile, a deep concern has taken place among the people across the country, particularly in the district of Habiganj, following the sharp rise of child missing incidents across the country in recent days. The Superintendent of Police of Habiganj, Shahidul Islam, however, rejecting the allegation told The New Nation on Saturday, "Police will soon form a 'special team to tackle such incidents' to ensure the safety for the children." Four residential students of Purba Naogaon Haji Suruj Ali Hafizia Madrasah at Naogaon village in sadar upazila reportedly went missing from the madrasah since Friday afternoon. The missing students are Shohanur, 12, son of Abdul Awal of Sadar upazila, Nayan, 12, son of Abdullah Mia of Nabiganj upazila, Imtiaz, 12, son of Abdul Ahad and Rafid, 13, son of Ahmed Rashid Monur of Bahubal upazila, said our district correspondent quoting police and locals. The Naogaon Hafizia Madrasa Assistant Teacher Maulana Selim Ahmed said: "The children went to Shayestaganj after Juma prayers and since then they remain missing. The incident came to the notice of the authorities after the madrasah was opened on Saturday morning. Madrasa authorities have filed a general diary in this connection after an emergency meeting, he said. Shayestaganj Police Station Officer-in-Charge Yasinul Haque said: "I have heard about the matter from the locals and we will take necessary initiative in this regard." Missing student Rafid's father Ahmed Rashid also filed a general diary with Shayestaganj Police Station on Saturday afternoon. Officer-in-Charge of the police station Yasinul Haque said, "We are trying to rescue the boys." Earlier on February 12, Jakaria Ahmed Shuvo, 8, Tajel Miah, 10, Monir Miah, 7, and Ismail Hossain, 8, went missing in the district. Later, police recovered the bodies of the children from a ditch at Shundratiki village under Babubol upazila on February 17. On March 3, the body of a missing minor boy was found in hanging with a mango tree in Charder Hayder village in Bahubal upazila. The victim has been identified as Jewel amin, 20, son of Basir Ahmed. Meanwhile, two children, who went missing from Habiganj Sadar upazila on February 16, still remain traceless. The victims are Saifur Rahman Ananda, 12, son of Jamir Ali of Nishapat village in Sadar upazila, and Tayen Mia, 13, son of Kashem Mia of Rajnagar village in the upazila. Also, Tayen Mia, a student of Anwar Madina Madrasa of the village, went missing while he was returning home from the madrasah on February 17, and did not return home. Earlier, three minors allegedly went on missing from Sarkari Shishu Paribar of Habiganj district on November 7. The missing minors were identified as Delwar Hossain, 8, Mohamad Ali, 10, and Sujon, 11. Sources said, a minor named Sujon disappeared from Sarkari Shishu Paribar of Boro Bohula in the district in October last year, while Mohamad Ali of the same area on October 31 and Delwar hossen on November 2. Meanwhile, two youths supposed to be sent to Gazipur Juvenile Correction Centre, who were detained on charge of stealing, have reportedly gone missing from the district Jail in November. The missing teenagers are Antor and Nayan. Dhaka University criminologist Zia Rahman said children are being targeted as they can be victimised easily. He said that conflicts between individuals and groups as well as overall degradation of social values were causes behind child missing and murder. Contacted, Nazrul Islam, Deputy Inspector General (Media) of Police Headquarters, said that law enforcers are trying to decrease the crimes across the country. Turkish air strikes kill 67 Kurdish militants in north Iraq: Army Reuters, Ankara : Turkey's army said on Saturday it killed 67 Kurdish militants in air strikes on camps and ammunition storage sites in neighboring northern Iraq on Wednesday. Jets targeted sites at Qandil, Metina, Avasin, Haftanin and Basyan used by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants, the armed forces said. Separately, a bomb blast blamed on PKK militants hit an armored police vehicle near Turkey's border with Iraq on Friday, Turkish officials said. Two special force police officers were injured in the explosion on a road in Hakkari province's Yuksekova district, they added. A ceasefire between the PKK and the state collapsed in July and attacks on Turkey's security forces have increased amid a surge in violence in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, killing hundreds of people. BB`s irregular audit responsible for hacking, says Dr Akbar Ali Staff Reporter :Former adviser to the Caretaker Government Dr Akbar Ali Khan has said that the Bangladesh Bank (BB) must have an audit and internal control system of its internet banking activities to prevent the online hacking. "Due to lack of regular audit and internal control system, the hackers got the access to the BB's computer servers and steal money form its reserve account maintained with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York," he added. Akbar Ali Khan said the central bank should carry out such audit round the clock to prevent its servers from hacking. "BB should concentrate more to protect the online banking system and tighten its internal control system to stop the recurrence of such incidents in future," Akbar Ali Khan said this in a television talk show on Saturday. He further said that the BB failed to take stern action against those people who were involved in the incident. "Even the bank did not work properly to get back the hacked money." "It has provided divergent information to the people regarding the scam which created misconception about the incident. Even the people remained in dark about the real fact. Such a malpractice tarnished the image of the central bank at home and abroad," he added.Commenting on the recent scams in the banking sector, Akbar Ali Khan said, "The total banking system has been collapsed because of large loan scams and irregularities in sanctioning loans. An influential quarter has already swindled a big sum of money from the country's banking system leaving it into a deep trouble". The government must start a trial against the swindlers to get bank the money. Otherwise, he said, it will leave an adverse impact on the national economy. The Elites Want Genocide This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a ... Ahead of our review of Pride + Prejudice + Zombies ,we felt like we needed to take a look at the ladies who populate the film; not only be... If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs. Monet rahapelien ystavat ovat viime vuosina loytaneet netticasinot ja olleet ihmeissaan. Verrattuna kotimaisen Veikkauksen kivijalkarahapeleihin puhutaan aivan eri tason palautusprosenteista ja lisaksi pelaaminen on aarimmaisen helppoa ja turvallista. Netticasinoiden maara on tana paivana todella suuri ja niita loytyy jokaiseen lahtoon, suurin ongelma aloittelevalla pelaajalla onkin tehda valinta siita, minka netticasinon valitsee. Kaikkien netticasinoiden mainospuheet naet lupaavat kauniita asioita ja niiden lapinakeminen on tietysti tarkeaa. Nyrkkisaantona voidaan kuitenkin jo kattelyssa todeta, etta jos valitsemasi netticasino on lisensoitu ETA-alueella, sen kanssa ei tule olemaan ongelmia, ellei niita itse jarjesta. Kay tutustumassa parhaisiin netticasinoihin osoitteessa www.ilmaiskierroksia.info! Ensimmainen nyrkkisaanto on siis varmistaa, etta valitsemallasi netticasinolla on ETA-alueen lisenssi. Suurimmassa osassa tapauksista se on Maltan eli MGA:n lisenssi. Myos Viron, Englannin ja Gibraltarin lisensseja nakyy ja naissa valvonta on jopa Maltaa tiukempaa. Lopputulema on kuitenkin se, etta ETA-alueen lisenssi takaa suomalaisille verovapaat voitot seka sen, etta niita valvotaan kontrolloidusti. Maailmalla on iso nippu Curacaon lisenssilla toimivia netticasinoita ja niistakin suurin osa on laadukkaita. Ne eivat kuitenkaan ole suomalaisille asiakkaille verovapaita, joten emme suosittele niita. Tana paivana markkinoille on ilmaantunut paljon ETA-alueella toimiva netticasinoita ilman rekisteroitymista. Jos tarkoitus on vain pelata yksittaisia pelikertoja, on varsin helppo suositella naita. Netticasinot ilman rekisteroitymista tarjoavat palvelun tunnistautumisen verkkopankin avainlukulistan avulla ja saman palvelun kautta tapahtuvat talletukset ja mahdolliset voittojen nostot silmanrapayksessa. Normaaleihin netticasinoihin pitaa asiakkaan rekisteroitya, tehda talletukset ja tunnistautua dokumenttien avulla. Tama on lisenssiehtojen mukainen kaytanto, eika kovinkaan monimutkainen, mutta silti monet asiakkaat haluavat yksinkertaista ja nopeaa palvelua. Toki normaalit netticasinot tarjoavat usein asiakkailleen laadukkaita talletusbonuksia ja erilaisia kampanjoita, joten kannattaa tarkkaan punnita, kumman ratkaisun valitsee. Kannattaa myos muistaa, etta tunnistautuminen tehdaan vain kerran, joten mikaan jatkuva riippakivi se ei ole. Suomalaiset asiakkaat ovat netticasinoille tarkeita, joten kaikilla vahankin laadukkailla netticasinoilla on suomenkieliset sivut seka suomenkielinen asiakaspalvelu suomenkielisyys kannattaakin ottaa netticasinoa valittaessa nyrkkisaannoksi. Vaikka tana paivana englanninkielisyys on harvoille ongelma, on suomenkielisten netticasinoiden maara niin valtava, etta suosittelemme niiden kayttoa. Rahansiirrot ovat tana paivana niin hyvassa mallissa, etta niiden kanssa tuskin tulee mitaan ongelmia. Kolme tarkeinta segmenttia: Suomalaiset verkkopankit, luottokortit (Visa, Mastercard) seka nettilompakot (Skrill, Neteller) loytyvat jokaisesta laadukkaasta netticasinosta. Viime vuosien trendiksi noussut verkkokauppa on kehittanyt rahansiirrot niin laadukkaiksi ja nopeiksi, etta niiden suhteen ei ole enaa vuosiin ollut ongelmia. Luonnollisesti netticasinot kayttavat naita samoja palveluita ja hyotyvat kehityksesta. Naiden isojen linjojen jalkeen netticasinon valintaan vaikuttavat luonnollisesti tarjottavat tervetuliaisbonukset uudet asiakkaat saavat tana paivana kovan kilpailun myota merkittavia etuja netticasinoilta ja niita kannattaa luonnollisesti vertailla. Erilaiset talletusbonukset, ilmaiskierrokset seka ilmaiset pelirahat tuovat suuriakin rahanarvoisia etuja ja niiden vertailu on ehdottomasti kannattavaa. Myoskaan useampien tilien avaaminen ja tervetuliaistarjousten kayttaminen ei missaan nimessa ole huono idea. Kun edella mainitut asiat ovat mieleisia ja vaihtoehtoja on vielakin jaljella, mennaan jo nyansseihin. Toki pelivalikoima on yksi kriteeri, mutta taman paivan netticasinoissa tamakin asia on paasaantoisesti varsin samanlainen. Toki useamman samantasoisen netticasinon vertailussa kannattaa yleensa valita se, jossa on eniten peleja tarjolla. Vaikka omat suosikit loytyisivatkin useammasta, voi tulevaisuudessa mielenkiinto nousta joihinkin muihin peleihin ja silloin on tietysti mukavampaa, etta ne loytyvat valikoimista. Viimeisena voidaan nostaa esiin kaytettavyys joidenkin netticasinoiden sivut ovat vilkkuvia, valkkyvia ja epakaytannollisia. Omaan silmaan ja kaytettavyyteen sopiva sivusto on luonnollisesti aina se paras valinta. Tarjonta netticasinoissa on tana paivana valtava ja jokaiselle loytyy varmasti se oma netticasino onnea matkaan! By AM Saturday, March 12, 2016 Share Tweet Share Share Email the foundation of Israel, God appeared to David Ben-Gurion and told him: "You have done good by my people. Utter a wish and I shall grant it!""I wish that Israel shall be Jewish, democratic and encompass all the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan," Ben-Gurion replied."That is too much even for me!" God exclaimed. "But I will grant you two of the three. You can choose between a Jewish and democratic Israel in a part of the country, a democratic state in all of the country that will not be Jewish or a Jewish Israel in all of the country that will not be democratic."God has not changed his mind.am writing this, Binyamin Netanyahu is totally absorbed in enacting a new law, a law that would be a watershed in the history of Israel. The public looks on in a bemused way, as if it were happening in Kamchatka.This law would (I might say "will") enable 90 of the 120 Knesset members to evict any or all the other members from the Knesset altogether. The grounds for such a decision are nebulous: supporting "terrorism" by speech as well as by deed, denying the Jewish character of the state, and such.Who decides? The majority, of course.The immediate impetus for proposing this bill was provided by the three Arab Knesset members who visited the parents of Arab "terrorists" in annexed East Jerusalem. I have already mentioned this in my last article. They had a good pretext to help them to obtain the bodies of their sons, who had been shot dead on the spot. But the obvious reason was to pay their condolences.Now, it may be argued that a bereaved mother is a bereaved mother, irrespective of the cause of her son's death, and that to offer condolences is a human virtue. But that may be too humanistic for Likud members.In the good old times, when we were the "terrorists" and the British were the occupiers, I would certainly have paid my condolences to a neighbor whose son had been shot during an Irgun raid. I don't think the British would have arrested me for that.By law, Knesset members are immune from prosecution for any act committed in the line of their duties. For Knesset members to visit their voters in such circumstances may be such an act. Therefore, a new law is necessary.And what a law!a thing happening in England or the US," Netanyahu thundered, "an MP or congressman supporting terrorists!""Imagine such a thing happening in Britain or the US," I would reply, "a law allowing three quarters of Parliament or Congress to evict the others!"Netanyahu was brought up in the US. He most surely has been taught there that democracy does not mean only the rule of the majority. Adolf Hitler was probably supported by the majority. Democracy means that the majority respects the rights of minorities. Including the right of free speech.The right of free speech does not mean the right to express popular views. Popular views do not need any protection. Free speech means the right to utter views that are detested by almost everyone.It certainly means the right of minorities to express their views by peaceful means. And that is the crux of the matter.Everybody understands that the right of 90 to evict 30 is a threat to evict the Arabs from the Knesset. The "Arab" faction in the present Knesset comprises 13 members and will probably get larger in the next few elections.(It's a bit complicated. The "Arab" faction includes a Jewish member, who is much respected. The "Jewish" factions include some token Arab members, who dare not open their mouth on serious matters.)This is not a law against "terrorist" sympathizers. This is a law against the Arab minority. The Knesset will be Jewish, pure and simple.Going back to Gods deal with Ben-Gurion, It will be a Jewish state in all of the country, without being democratic.minorities since the Babylonian exile, some 2500 years ago. All Jews have been minorities for some thousands of years.One would have believed that 80 generations are enough to learn how a state should behave towards minorities. Indeed, one could have believed that all the states of the world would be sending delegations to Israel to learn how minorities should be treated. The founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, certainly thought so, and described the idyllic relations between the Jewish state and its Arab inhabitants in his futuristic novel "Altneuland" ("Old-New-Land").Alas, this did not come to be. The times when a young and fresh Israel attracted progressives from all over the world to see the Kibbutzim and Moshavim (cooperative villages) are long gone. (It now appears that Bernie Sanders, one of the US Democratic candidates for president, once was a volunteer worker in a kibbutz). Even before the proposed law is enacted, Israel is one of the least democratic countries in the Western World, to which Israel wants to belong.In the West Bank, which is governed by Israel, there live about 2.5 million people who are devoid of any civil and human rights. Just this week Amira Hass, the courageous Israeli chronicler of the occupation, described how the comfortable home of a Palestinian bourgeois family was invaded in the middle of the night by an army squad and they were told to clear their living room, which became an army outpost. The soldiers brought with them a portable chemical WC, but relieved themselves freely from the balcony.We believed for a time that Israel could remain "the only democracy in the Middle East" while holding large occupied territories. Didn't the British hold hundreds of millions of Indians in subjugation, while the home country remained the world's shining example of democracy? Sure, but an Englishman needed several weeks to sail from Liverpool to Bombay, time enough to change his personality, while one needs only five minutes to cross from Israel into the West Bank.The Arab citizens of Israel proper constitute some 20% of the population. These were the remnants of a large majority, most of whom had fled or were evicted.This percentage has remained so from the beginning of the state until now, a time in which the population of Israel has grown more than tenfold.A miracle? Almost. The huge natural increase of the Arab population has been balance by Jewish immigration, first from the Islamic countries, then from Russia, and lately from Ethiopia. They are still 20%, as God foresaw.The first generation of "Israeli Arabs" as Jews called them, much to their dismay were meek and docile, still shocked by the immense catastrophe that had befallen their people. For safety's sake, they were subjected to a "military government", which restricted their movements. An Arab could not go from his village to the next, much less buy a tractor or send a son to study, without a written military permit. This system was abolished only after 17 years.One may wonder why they were granted voting rights at all. Well, since they were so docile, Ben-Gurion, a party man through and through, decided that they would bolster his party's majority at the polls. This indeed did happen.But now there is a third generation of Arab citizens. There are Arab university professors, chief physicians, entrepreneurs, even police commanders. There are Palestinian nationalists, Islamists, Communists. They have feelings, demands, even the chutzpah to demand full equality.That would be a large enough problem in a normal situation. But the situation here is not normal. Israel's national minority is a part of the Palestinian people, whose entire territory the present Israeli leadership wants to take away.In The back of my mind I have a script for a movie. I am ready to give it away for free.Two Jewish boys, call them Abraham and David, escape Nazi Germany. David goes to the US, Abraham goes to Palestine.David, of course, joins the movement of Martin Luther King, becomes a leading civil rights activist and is now a fervent campaigner for the rights of minorities. He also supports BDS, which calls for the boycott of Israel.Abraham, who calls himself Rami, is a colonel in the Israeli army, a fervent nationalist and regular Likud voter, an admirer of Netanyahu. By sheer accident (this is a movie, after all) he once was a member of the kibbutz in which Bernie Sanders was a volunteer worker.He is in charge of a large part of the West Bank, and happens to be responsible for the order under which Palestinians are thrown out of their homes for security purposes.David heads an American human rights delegation that comes to investigate whats happening in the occupied territories, Rami has the task of preventing them getting there. And so on.to God, He is shaking his head. These humans, He asks Himself, will they never learn?No country has ever profited from throwing out its minorities. Nazi Germany threw out its Jewish scientists, some of whom went to the US and built the atomic bomb for America. Long before that, the Catholic kings of France threw out the Protestant Huguenots, who emigrated to Prussia and turned a small garrison town named Berlin into a world center of industry and culture. There are many more examples.If two thousand years have not taught us anything, when will we ever learn? See the modern uklele genius combine componenets of modern rock, traditional Hawaiian and classical guitar. Consider the humble ukulele. Its an adaptation of a stringed instrument that traveled with Portuguese immigrants who came to work in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii. Islanders made the machete their own, mixing external influences of classical European music and Spanish guitar with Hawaiian songs. Native Hawaiians renamed the little machete the ukulele and its become synonymous with Hawaiian music and Hawaiian culture. Jake Shimabukuro comes from that same process of mixing both island and outside influences, both modern and historical. Hes combined the qualities of a long line of virtuoso ukulele players with modern rock musicians to create a sound thats uniquely his own but still firmly grounded in Hawaiian tradition. Growing up in Hawaii, Jakes influences include legendary ukulele players like Eddie Kamae, Ohta-San and Peter Moon. Jake also credits icons like Bruce Lee and Michael Jordan as a source of inspiration. Known for his energetic strumming on the ukulele, Jakes performance incorporates elements of thoughtful, sophisticated arrangements to spontaneous, improvised passages. In addition to his original compositions, his repertoire includes Queens Bohemian Rhapsody, Schuberts Ave Maria and Cohens Hallelujah. Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Jakes life has always centered on the ukulele. He started playing at the age of four, urged by his mother who also played. Jake began his music career in the mid-90s, performing at local coffee shops as a sideman with his first band, Pure Heart. But Jakes solo career began in 2002 when he signed with Epic Records, becoming the first ukulele player to sign with Sony Music. While his well-received solo releases positioned Jake as an established musician in Hawaii and Japan, his career skyrocketed when a cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps went viral on YouTube with more than 13 million views, opening the rest of the worlds eyes to Jake and his unique playing style. In the years since the YouTube clip aired, Jake has collaborated with an array of artists that include Yo-Yo Ma, Jimmy Buffett, Bette Midler, Cyndi Lauper, Jack Johnson, Ziggy Marley, Dave Koz, Michael McDonald, Bela Fleck and The Flecktones, Tommy Emmanuel, and Lyle Lovett as well as orchestras around the world. Hes sold out world-class venues, played at Bonnaroo, SXSW, the Playboy Jazz Festival, Fuji Rock Festival, the influential TED conference, and even performed for Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Variety Performance in Blackpool, England. He has topped Billboards World Music Chart numerous times, been declared a musical hero by Rolling Stone Magazine, which also stated: one of the hottest axemen of the past few years doesnt actually play guitar. He has also won accolades from the disparate likes of Eddie Vedder who states: Jake is taking the instrument to a place that I cant see anybody else catching up with; been talked about by Perez Hilton and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, wowed audiences on national TV with appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night with Conan OBrien, Good Morning America, and The Today Show, and along the way has earned comparisons to musical innovators such as Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis. Jake has been the subject of an award winning documentary Jake Shimabukuro: Life On Four Strings, currently on Netflix. Jake also travels to schools around the world and spreads positive messages to young people, encouraging them to find their passion and live drug-free. Although he is constantly touring, playing 140 shows a year, Jake and his family continue to make Hawaii their home. Currently Jake is in the recording studio working on a new album thats expected to be released late summer 2015. Official Website: http://www.jakeshimabukuro.com http://www.facebook.com/jakeshimabukuromusic http://www.twitter.com/jakeshimabukuro http://www.youtube.com/jakeshimabukuro http://www.instagram.com/jakeshimabukuro Editor's note: This story has been updated with clarifying information under the question, "Who are these "delegates" on my ballot?" with regards to the significance of the statewide vote for presidential candidates on the Republican and Democratic ballots in Illinois, and the role of the delegates. When are polls open? Polls open at 6 a.m. on primary Election Day, Tuesday, March 15. They close at 7 p.m. Do I need to bring ID? No. Illinois law does not require that you show an ID to vote so long as you were previously legally registered to vote at the address where you still reside. You will be asked to sign your name when you request a ballot. Where is my polling place located? The address of your polling place is located on your voter registration card. But if you dont have that, you can call your respective county clerks office, and they will be able to direct you to your polling place. If you dont know where to vote, it is advised that you call your county clerks office on Monday for this information. While you also could call Tuesday, theres a good chance youre not the only one who doesnt know where to vote, and the phone lines may be busy. Also, if you show up to a polling place that is not yours, election judges will have maps available and will direct you to the correct place. If all else fails, you can show up at your county clerks office on Election Day and vote there. What if Im not registered? If you are not registered to vote at your current address, you can do so through Election Day. You will not, however, be able to do this at what would be your assigned polling place. You will need to visit your respective county clerks office. Some counties have identified a polling place that can do this off-site. For example, these services will be available at the SIU Student Center in Jackson County on Election Day, as well as at the clerks office. What do I need to bring with me to register? To register, you will need two forms of identification. One must be a picture ID, such as a drivers license or state ID card. The other must show your current address, for example, an official piece of mail, such as a utility bill. How does the primary work in Illinois? When you arrive at your polling place, an election judge will ask you whether you want to pull a ballot for the Republican Party, the Democratic Party or the Green Party. You can only choose one. There is no requirement that you are registered with a particular party to vote in that partys primary. It doesnt matter which partys ballot you requested in the previous primary election. But you can only vote in one partys primary. How do I decide which ballot to pull? For some people, this decision is easy because they always pull either a Democratic or Republican ballot. But other voters may choose a respective partys ballot because they are particularly interested in a highly competitive primary race, even if they are independent voters or generally identify with the other party. In those cases, its important to know the party of the candidate youre hoping to support. Of note, if you wish to weigh in on, for example, the Republican Partys nomination on the Republican ticket and the Williamson County States Attorneys nomination on the Democratic ticket, and you live in that county, youll have to choose which is more important to you. The same could be said for voters in several Southern Illinois counties who may want to weigh in on the Democratic presidential nomination, but also were hoping to cast a ballot in the Republican Primary for the 58th Senate District. Since you can only pick one partys ballot, there may be races on the other partys ballot you thought youd have a chance to vote on because youve been hearing them discussed in your community or on the news. Thats why its important to decide which ballot you want to pull before you head to the polls. If you pull a Green Party ballot, you will not have the option of weighing in on any presidential or statewide candidates. The competitive Green Party race on the ballot in this area is for the partys nomination for the 12th Congressional District where Paula Bradshaw is facing Sadona Folkner. Who are these delegates on my ballot? Illinois primary system is a bit unusual, and can be confusing. If you pick a Republican or Democratic ballot, at the top will be the candidates seeking that partys nomination. Youre most likely to recognize those names, and you can vote for the candidate you prefer. The statewide vote carries weight on the Democratic side, but this is essentially what the pundits call a beauty contest on the Republican side. For both parties, the election of delegates is part of the equation. The parties nominate a candidate at their respective national conventions, and what counts is that you pick the delegates who pledge to vote at the convention for the candidate you want to win. You may not recognize the names of the delegates listed on your ballot, but to the right, in parentheses, it will say which candidate he or she is supporting. The idea is to pick the delegates that support your candidate, as the directions will state on your ballot. This process carries more weight on the Republican side. The winner of the statewide vote does receive 12 at-large delegates at the convention, but the majority of delegates are determined by voters in each congressional district. On the other hand, Democrats use statewide results as part of a hybrid system to divvy up delegates for each candidate. The delegate votes on the ballot also play a role in determining who goes to the convention. On the Republican ticket, a voter can choose three delegates. On the Democratic ticket, a voter can choose six delegates, because that partys convention is significantly larger. You can choose any combination of delegates. For example, on the Democratic ticket, you could pick three delegates for one candidate, and three for the other. While thats allowed, this would mean essentially canceling out your own vote. Most people who support a particular candidate pick the maximum number of delegates that they can who are pledging to support a particular candidate. Also of note, there are cases, due to a lack of organization on behalf of a particular candidate, that the number of delegates pledging to support him or her will be shy of the total amount allowed three for Republicans and six for Democrats. In those cases, you could either choose to just vote for the delegates supporting your chosen candidate, or you can select all the delegates available for that person, and give your remaining votes to delegates supporting other candidates. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. They do, if only we choose to see it that way.Because life is constant motion, things never stay the same. It is part of the process of living and resistance, well, it is futile.It is said that the only constant in this world is change. Wouldn't it be nice if we too, constantly seek to cope with this constant? Much of the struggles of life comes from our refusal to accept the cards that were dealt us in the game of life. If only we learned to accept that we will be dealt a different hand at the most unexpected times in our lives will we realize that things do always change for the better. Disclaimer! THE TIMES OF AHMAD is NOT an organ of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, nor in any way associated with any of the community's official websites. Times of Ahmad is an independently run and privately managed news / contents archival website; and does not claim to speak for or represent the official views of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The Times of Ahmad assumes full responsibility for the contents of its web pages. The views expressed by the authors and sources of the news archives do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Times of Ahmad. All rights associated with any contents archived / stored on this website remain the property of the original owners. Having previously agreed on establishing a joint a pharmaceutical factory in Azerbaijans Sumgait City, the countries will eventually need to invest 35 million euros at the initial stage, a senior Iranian health official told Trend in Baku. Iran's Deputy Health Minister and Head of the Food and Drug Administration Rassoul Dinarvand said that Irans Darou Pakhsh Pharma Chem company will cooperate with Azerbaijan for launching the joint pharmaceutical factory. According to the deputy minister, the factory is expected to produce dozens of essential drugs to be used for treatment of heart diseases, contagious diseases, non-communicable diseases as well as various types of antibiotics and painkillers. Rassoul Dinarvand who is in an official visit in Baku to discuss finalizing the pharmaceutical project, has already met several Azerbaijani officials in a bid to pave the way for launching the project. The way for investment has been paved and the project will be inaugurated soon, he said. Back in February, addressing a Press Conference in Baku, Iranian Ambassador to Baku Mohsen Pak Ayeen said Iran and Azerbaijan have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to establish a pharmaceutical factory in Azerbaijans Sumgait City. According to Pak Ayeen the MoU was agreed during President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyevs visit to Tehran in February. On Feb. 23 President Ilham Aliyev concluded his official visit to Iran which took place on the invitation of President Hassan Rouhani. The high level official visit resulted in conclusion of over 10 documents covering various areas of cooperation between Tehran and Baku. Head of Azerbaijans state Internet service provider BakinterNet Seymur Yusifov has been dismissed. The decision was made by the countrys Ministry of Communications and High Technologies. Yusifov was dismissed due to customer complaints. The recently created working group reviewed the complaints and the quality of Internet offered to the customers by the provider. The results didnt satisfy the new management and Yusifov was dismissed. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan has allocated a loan worth 22 million manats to Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF), the Funds executive director Azad Javadov told Trend March 12. The official exchange rate on March 12 is 1.6456 AZN/USD. He noted that the loan has been allocated for a period of one year at five percent per annum. The loan has been mainly attracted to uphold the currency structure of the Funds assets, said Javadov. The amount of the loan is not so big and we are going to completely repay it even earlier than a year, said the executive director. He noted that ADIF should pay 148 million manats to depositors of liquidated banks, while its funds stood at 132 million manats as of early 2016. We have already paid over 110 million manats of compensation to depositors, said Javadov. It is impossible to forecast the exact amount of compensations. This amount can change as a result of evaluation. Therefore, we have attracted this amount of loan to have reserve funds, he said. I believe that after paying compensations to all depositors, we will still have 5-6 million manats. Javadov believes that there is no need to attract additional loan for ADIF in the near future. Despite the fact that Azerbaijan is a small country, it is able to influence international processes, Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administrations foreign relations department, told reporters March 11. Having invited over 300 world leaders, who have great merits to Baku, we try to express our attitude to processes taking place in the world and join our efforts, Mammadov said. Mammadov went on to add that organization of the IV Global Baku Forum by Azerbaijan is a very important event. This is a contribution made by Azerbaijan in ensuring stability, security and development in the world, he said. Despite the fact that Azerbaijan is a small country, it is able to affect intergovernmental relations on the world stage. On March 10, 2016 two anti-Azerbaijani resolutions (SR 60 and SCR 93) were introduced at the Hawaii State Senate, Azerbaijans Consulate General in Los Angeles told Trend. The resolutions were introduced by legislators, misled by radical Armenian special interest groups. If adopted, the Hawaii State Legislature would have recognized the illegal regime called the "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic", which has been established on Azerbaijan's territory by Armenia following its invasion and ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijan's lands in 1991-94. The so-called "NKR", a regime of Armenia, has not been recognized by the US or any other country in the world. The United Nations Security Council and other major international organizations have repeatedly condemned this illegal occupation as well as reaffirmed their support for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Immediately after learning about these totally flawed, biased and misleading resolutions, the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles contacted the Hawaii Senators via phone calls and official letters, drawing their attention to the gross misrepresentation of facts concerning the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. As a result of these efforts, the Hawaii State Senate leadership issued on March 11, 2016 an official statement determinedly rejecting the mentioned resolutions. The statement says that the "Hawaii State Senate, consistent with the policies of the US to respect the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, will not consider and does not support the adoption of these resolutions." Azerbaijan's Consulate General thanked the Hawaii State Senate leadership for their principled statesmanship. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received the credentials of newly-appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Moldova George Leuke. Ambassador George Leuke reviewed the guard of honor. George Leuke handed his credentials to the head of state. President Aliyev then had a conversation with the ambassador. The head of state noted that the bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Moldova have been developing successfully for many years on various fronts, including politics, as well as within international organizations. The president expressed hope that the ambassador will actively work to strengthen these ties. Stressing the importance of defining new areas of Azerbaijan-Moldova cooperation, especially in the economic sphere, President Aliyev said the two countries have not enough used their bilateral trade and investment potential. The head of state noted the significance of high-level reciprocal visits in terms of developing the bilateral relations. Underling that the two countries participate in the European Union`s programs, President Aliyev noted that the cooperation on this front is satisfactory. The head of state expressed confidence that the ambassador will contribute to the development of the bilateral ties, including cooperation in the economic area, and wished George Leuke success in his activities. Newly-appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Moldova George Leuke noted that there are big opportunities for developing the economic relations between the two countries. George Leuke said he will spare no efforts to contribute to the development of Moldova-Azerbaijan bilateral ties and the strengthening of cooperation and friendly relations. The issues discussed during the 4th Global Baku Forum titled Towards a Multipolar World showed that countries have to seek new paradigms to get rid of terrorism, wars, social and economic crises, Emil Huseynli, head of the 'Support for youth development Dushunce' public association, told reporters. He noted that by hosting such prestigious international forums, Baku has turned into the think-tank. Baku exports political culture to the world, thereby showing that Azerbaijan is simultaneously interested in preserving mental values and actively participating in secular processes, according to Huseynli. He pointed out that while activists are detained in Armenia, Baku hosts a prestigious event. Armenias President Serzh Sargsyan leaves for Moscow to ask for assistance, while Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev sends clear messages to the world, he added. Ilham Aliyev sent a clear message to the world that the member states of the UN Security Council should display a political will in order to ensure the fulfilment of the Councils resolutions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijans president is also the supreme commander-in-chief of the countrys armed forces, he said. World leaders should understand that as part of the anti-terror operations, the supreme commander-in-chief can any time issue an order to restore the countrys territorial integrity. Therefore, the centers of power should display a political will for resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Ten members of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) terrorist organization have been arrested in the Turkish western province of Izmir, the Turkish news agency Anadolu reported March 12. The detainees were planning to commit terrorist acts in several districts of Istanbul. Six members of the DHKP-C terrorist organization, who were planning to commit terrorist acts, were arrested in Istanbul March 9. On Feb. 16, 2016, the Turkish police arrested Dilek Kaya, a potential female suicide bomber in the Sanliurfa province, south-eastern Turkey. Kaya is a member of the DHKP-C terrorist organization. The DHKP-C is responsible for terrorist acts committed in May 2013 in the city of Reyhanli of Turkeys Hatay province, which killed 46 and injured 155 people. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in New Zealand to discuss bilateral relations, specifically, economic ties, IRNA reported on March 12. This is the first time during the last 12 years that an Iranian top official visits New Zealand. Iran was New Zealand's fifth biggest export target in 1980, IRNA reported. However, Iran Custom Administration's latest monthly report says that during March 2015-January 2016, Iran imported only $47 million worth of goods from this country. Zarif will meet the Prime Minister John Key as well as his cabinet's two economic advisors, IRNA reported, adding that Iranian minister also has a plan to visit the representatives of the private economic sector. Turkmenistan and Pakistan plan to sign a package of bilateral documents, read a message from Turkmenistans government. The documents will be signed following the official visit of Turkmenistans President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to Pakistan on March 16-17. The documents are meant to further intensify and expand the Turkmen-Pakistani partnership, said the message. The promising areas of cooperation between the two countries include energy sphere, transportation and other fields. The two countries are involved in Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project. The construction of the TAPI gas pipeline started in mid-December 2015. Its total length is 1,735 kilometers. The main document for the TAPI, called the Ashgabat Interstate Agreement, was signed in 2010. Seamus donates to 'miracle' Belfast Blue's fund , 11 March, The six-year-old has overcome massive odds after being born with a rare genetic condition known as Apert Syndrome which doctors claimed meant he was unlikely to survive beyond 48 hours after he was born. The Republic of Ireland international sent a message to West Belfast Evertonian's Facebook page: "I read Daire's story online and would love to help get him his trip to Goodison next season. I made a donation of 5 thousand pounds and hope that can help get Daire and his family a safe trip to Liverpool. Looking forward to seeing you at a game next season." According to a report on BelfastLive's website, Everton have already been in touch Daire's family to offer him tickets to a game of his choice next season but it's the travel arrangements that are the most difficult for the family because he has had to fly via Air Ambulance in the past. "[T]he boat might be the best option," said his mother, Colette. "I can't see why he couldn't go on the boat but the only thing is his concentration span and trying to keep him entertained but we'll hopefully get there." Meanwhile, Ciaran Rogan, who set up the fundraising campaign for Daire said has bowled over when he received the message from Seamus. "It's absolutely outstanding and overwhelming to know that a true blue player has given his support to something like this and to help a young lad out. "It was overpowering message to receive." Quotes or other material sourced from Belfast Live Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer About these ads ToffeeWeb Two Chinese firms are pushing for multi-billion dollar deals with Iran to build a high-speed railway and modernise its shipping fleet following the lifting of most sanctions against Tehran, sources with knowledge of the negotiations said. State-run China National Transportation Equipment & Engineering Co Ltd (CTC) is close to finalising an agreement on the $3 billion rail project to connect Tehran with the northeastern holy city of Mashhad, a Chinese source told Reuters. Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co, which is also controlled by Beijing, has likewise been in discussions on building container ships and oil tankers for Iran, according to two sources who declined to be identified because the talks are still continuing. China, Iran's largest trading partner and long-time ally, has agreed to boost bilateral trade by more than 10 times to $600 billion in the next decade. With Iran no longer subject to international sanctions since January following its nuclear deal with world powers, Beijing sees the country as part of its policy to increase trade and open new markets for its firms as the domestic Chinese economy slows. For the 930-km (580 mile) rail project, China's Export and Import Bank (EXIM) is expected to fund 85 percent of the cost, with CTC providing engineering, procurement and construction services, said the source. China EXIM Bank is Beijing's designated policy lender for large trade deals and overseas investments by Chinese firms. Neither the bank nor CTC responded immediately to requests for comment. Iran's Tasnim News Agency last month reported a lower cost of $2 billion for the project, which it said would take 42 months to build. TEHRAN VISITS A spokesman at China Shipbuilding Industry Corp, parent of Dalian Shipbuilding, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, one of the sources estimated Iran would need $8-12 billion to modernise its fleet of container, cargo and oil tanker ships by around 2022. Top Dalian shipyard executives have visited Tehran three times since January, meeting their counterparts at the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) - Iran's top container and cargo carrier - and the country's oil shipping operator National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC), the sources said. IRISL and NITC were not immediately available for comment. "We've had lots of contact with NITC," said a Chinese shipbuilding executive, declining to be identified because he is not authorised to speak to the media. "Advanced ship models and solid technical support make Dalian Shipping a strong suitor for Iran." Previously Chinese shipyards, including Dalian, had built large oil tankers for NITC in an order worth $1.2 billion between 2012 and 2013, Reuters has reported. State financing and lower costs would make China a dominant player in the Iranian shipping industry versus Asian rivals South Korea and Singapore, said Reza Mostafavi Tabatabaei, president of London-based ENEXD, a firm involved in oil and gas equipment business between the Middle East and China. "They (IRISL) hope to become one of the biggest shipping lines in the world," said Tabatabaei, adding that NITC wants to double its tanker capacity within the next six years by buying new ships and overhauling existing ones. Major international companies are also rushing to establish a position in Iran as the Islamic Republic re-opens for business. With 80 million people and annual output of about $400 billion, Iran is the biggest economy to rejoin the global trading system since Russia did so following the breakup of the Soviet Union over two decades ago. - Reuters The education fraternity should primarily pursue happiness and the student happiness should be a prerequisite to success, said Dubais school education regulator. Students live in a technologically-advanced world and we need to deal with several issues that emerge out of the challenges of todays world and we as education specialists cannot ignore this vital aspect of development, remarked Dr Abdulla Al Karam, the director-general of the Dubai Government Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA). He was speaking at the panel discussion on A happy future for all children" and discussing ways on how to promote wellness and positivity in schools debates if governments should cut back on academics and increase social aspects of education" at the fourth Global Education & Skills Forum being held in Dubai until March 13. Dr Al Karam was part of a four-member panel comprising Tony Little, the chief academic officer, Gems Education, UK; Dr Vicki Zakrzewski, the education director of the Greater Good Science Centre, US, and Alexandra Harper, the head of Early Childhood, Redlands School, Australia. He pointed out that children are born curious but lose that curiosity as they grow older thus adversely affecting their emotional and social wellbeing. At the entry point for schools, four-year old children ask around 100 questions a day, quipped Dr Al Karam. Six years later they only ask 10 questions daily, he stated. He then asked the audience how many questions we ask as grownups, stating that "we lose our curiosity as we grow older." "This is because we tend to put measurement of academics above the social wellness of students which tends to destroy creativity and curiosity," he added. The education system did a great job in the past to focus on the top six inches of our head but we need to address the needs of students a little lower the heart to teach children about their emotional and social happiness. Dr Zakrzewski said the schools need to increasingly check the emotional literacy of their students. We are more than just a test score we need to cultivate our childrens emotional and social health. We need to be human, we need to build bridges and ensure that happiness is an element of our pedagogical outlook, he observed. Harper, whose mission is to promote her students creativity, individuality and wellbeing, has created tools that encourage students to celebrate happiness while Tony Little highlighted how competence and creativity is deadened by measurement tools. Little spoke of how young students learn more from each other and more from outside the classroom. "When I joined Eton, 17-year olds organised over 260 distinguished speakers to speak at the school during the year. Every aspect of this was arranged by these teenagers," he stated. "I believe respect for young people was heightened due to this and we need to believe in them, even at the risk of failure. If we can create activities and tools that encourage their social outcomes, we will have a happier student community and a generation which is stable and more wholesome," he added. The panel concluded with a round up by the moderator Karen Giles, the board director, Varkey Foundation and principal of Barham Primary School, London, with a consensus that education is a collective responsibility where teacher, parents, students, governments and policy makers need to look at how social development programmes can be included into the curriculum.-TradeArabia News Service The UAE is set to host more than 20,000 attendees from 90 countries and 500 exhibiting companies at 7th International Exhibition for National Security and Resilience (ISNR), billed to be the worlds largest homeland security event, which opens this week in Abu Dhabi. The expo, to be held from March 15 to 17, will run under the theme of Connecting Governments, Society, and Business, Through Innovation, Leadership, and Excellence to Build Safer Communities and Ensure a More Resilient World. Breaking its own show records, ISNR 2016 is set to host 500 exhibiting companies from 45 countries across 20,000 sq m of net indoor and outdoor exhibition space at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, said the organisers. ISNR 2016 will host five exhibitions, more than 60 seminars, 10 live demonstrations, and new product and solution launches, they stated. On the show, Major General Dr Ahmed Nasser Al Raisi, said: ISNR Abu Dhabi 2016 is one of the main safety and security events both internationally and in the Middle East and North Africa, providing decision-makers from the public and private sectors with the latest concepts and security technologies in the protection of critical national infrastructure, and emergency preparedness and national resilience." "This event is an important forum for general attendees and specialists to share experiences and knowledge, experience the newest and latest industry findings, and to learn about and experience the latest security equipment and solutions," he stated. "This global event, hosted by the UAE every two years, has become an important platform to meet the growing global demand for homeland security solutions, to help Middle East governments to protect citizens and critical national infrastructure, and to ensure regional stability," he observed. Hosting the worlds largest specialized exhibition in homeland security and national resilience in 2016 in the capital confirms the UAEs international standing, vision, and strong reputation in organizing international exhibitions, stated Major General Dr Al Raisi. A ajor highlight of the opening ceremony will be Aftershock II, an innovative live action scenario of emergency management. Continuing the momentum on Wednesday (March 16) will be the 6thInternational Conference on Cybercrimes, and the Occupational Safety and Health Middle East Conference, where attendees can network and share best practices with leading global experts. Demonstrating the strong business opportunity, ISNR 2016 is expected to top its 2014 record of $300 million in business deals. The 2016 Government Buyers and Business Connect program is hosting over 120 government buyers, and scheduling over 3,000 meetings between public and private sectors, and exhibitors. Supporting local businesses, more than 30 UAE SMEs will be featured in a pavilion. International exhibitors are led by Airbus, Airwatch, Alvo Medical, Avigilon, Bauer Kompressoren, Bisen Group, Bitdefender, Blue Coat, China North Industries Corp (Norinco), Cyberoam Technologies, Dahua Technology, GET Group, GimaexInternational, Huawei, MacNeillie, Maplin Electronics, Morpho, NEC Group, QinetiQ, Room Dimensions, Rosenbauer Group, Thales, and Winsted. UAE exhibitors include Al Hamra Group; Arabian Security; Atlas Group; Business Automation and Security Systems (BASS); Concorde-Corodex; Electronic Identity Management and Security Solution (EIMASS), Emirates Defense Industries Company (EDIC); Etimad Holding; Etisalat; Exclusive Networks Middle East; Eye on Technology; Falcon Eye; Hader Security and Communications (HSC) Systems; the International Golden Group (IGG); Jaheziya.; NAFFCO; Premiers for Equipment;Qartaja Trading Est.; Tawazun Safety, Security, and Disaster Management City; TechWise; and the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. "Compared to 2014, ISNR 2016 has seen 150 per cent growth in government buyers to 220 taking part in the ISNR Government Buyers and Business Connect Program, 79 per cent growth in net indoor and outdoor exhibition space to over 20,000 sq m," said Ara Fernezian, the group managing director (Middle East) Reed Exhibitions. "We have 40 per cent growth in countries to 57, strong 25 per cent growth in exhibitors at more than 530, and 20 per cent growth in sponsors to six," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Turkey's army said on Saturday it killed 67 Kurdish militants in air strikes on camps and ammunition storage sites in neighbouring northern Iraq on Wednesday. Jets targeted sites at Qandil, Metina, Avasin, Haftanin and Basyan used by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants, the armed forces said. Separately, a bomb blast blamed on PKK militants hit an armoured police vehicle near Turkey's border with Iraq on Friday, Turkish officials said. Two special force police officers were injured in the explosion on a road in Hakkari province's Yuksekova district, they added. A ceasefire between the PKK and the state collapsed in July and attacks on Turkey's security forces have increased amid a surge in violence in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, killing hundreds of people.-Reuters The US State Department for the first time on Friday accused Syria of violating a truce with rebels and urged Russia to use its influence to stop the attacks, warning they could "tear asunder" the fragile peace process aimed at ending the war. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United States "strongly condemned" the government of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad for air strikes reported to have struck civilian protesters in the cities of Aleppo and Deraa, including targeting a mosque as the congregation was leaving. Kirby said at a briefing that the United States also "strongly condemned the Assad regime's practice of removing badly needed medical supplies from the emergency humanitarian aid deliveries." He said the Syrian government's actions were a breach of the cessation of hostilities deal, which took effect on February 27. Syria's main opposition group said it would attend peace talks on Monday in Geneva but accused the Assad government of preparing to step up warfare to strengthen its negotiating position. Russia said it expected its ally Syria to attend, although Damascus has yet to publicly confirm it will do so. The UN-brokered talks coincide with the fifth anniversary of Syria's civil war in which 250,000 people have been killed and led to a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe. "We understand the fragility of it," Kirby told reporters. "We don't want to see violations of the cessation tear asunder these talks that are just about ready to start." The truce deal has reduced violence although not halted the fighting, with further hostilities reported in western Syria on Friday, and as battles against Islamic State raged further east. Kirby said in a separate statement that the cessation of hostilities generally had produced a "dramatic reduction" in violence in Syria and was largely holding after two weeks. He said none of the armed factions had indicated they wanted the truce to end, and so the US, the United Nations and other members of the International Syria Support Group considered it to still be in effect. Some groups had understood that the cessation agreement might end after two weeks.-Reuters Wilhelmsen Ships Service (WSS) has signed a contract with Chinese group Container Lines Company (Coscon) to supply its latest Unitor multi-gas detectors to its expanding container fleet. WSS is a Wilhelmsen group company which boasts of the worlds largest maritime services network, with 4,500 marine professionals servicing 2,200 ports in 125 countries. The agreement covers 70 vessels, including 20 newbuilds scheduled to launch between now and 2018. In addition, WSS have signed a five-year service agreement to maintain the detection units, said a statement from WSS. WSS has established a position as a key equipment and service partner for the Chinese company, and its latest gas detection units and supporting service package again proved to be a perfect fit for Coscon. A leading global provider of products and services to the shipping industry, WSS is committed to helping its customers navigate regulatory changes. This deal, valued at over $200,000, illustrates that it is way ahead of the curve when it comes to Solas X1/17. Approved by MSC 93/94, the latest Solas regulations require all ships engaged in international voyages to have, at the very least, one portable four-gas detection unit. WSS have consistently delivered the products and service solutions our business demands, says Mr Mao QingDao, the technical director of the Coscon fleet. Their new multi-gas detectors, backed up by their one of a kind onboard calibration and re-certification service is no different, its ideal for us, he noted. Commenting on the partnership, Aeolus Shi, WSS sales manager for China, said: "Ten years ago we supplied the first generation of Unitor gas detectors to Coscon for its entire fleet of 115 ships." Coscon, he stated, was one of the worlds leading providers of integrated container shipping service. "Being one of our loyal customers, Coscon appreciates the quality of our products, reliable service and global network, as well as the continuous improvement in our products and services," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Family Stuff Fun stuff for the family to do. HPCC Annual Easter Egg Hunt Highland Park Community Church would like to invite you to our annual community easter egg hunt at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 26. Please invite your friends and family and join us at either Fun Valley, Nancy English or Washington Park. Questions, call 265-4073. Unitarian Universalist events The public is invited to attend the Unitarian Universalist Community of Casper services and other events at our new location, 1040 West 15th Street. Services are held Sundays at 10 a.m. On March 13, guest speaker R.C. Johnson will present One Womans Use of Power to Build a Community, telling the story of R.C.s great-grandmother, Nellie Lockhart, one of Caspers early entrepreneurs. On March 20, guest speaker Dr. Tanis Lovercheck-Saunders will present Religious Justifications of Far Right Extremism. The annual Flower Communion will be held on March 27, and on April 3, Rev. Leslie Kee will speak about The Web of Creation. The UU Casper meditation group meets Thursdays at 6:30 p.m., and the weekly coffee talk is held Tuesdays at 10 a.m. The next Care N Share potluck will be held on March 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. Participants are asked to bring donations for the Wyoming Food for Thought Project. For more information about these events or Unitarian Universalism, visit uucasper.org, email info@uucasper.org, visit us on Facebook, or call Laura Gossman at 259-4469. Sniffin at western history celebration Wyoming author Bill Sniffin will be the speaker at the 33rd annual Western History Celebration from 4 to 5 p.m., on Thursday, March 24, at the Walter H. Nolte Gateway Center, room 225, at Casper College. This is free and open to the public and refreshments will follow. Sniffin, of Lander, has written three best-selling coffee table books on Wyoming. The celebration is sponsored by the Casper College Western History Center. Tween Monday Students in grades 4-6 are invited to attend our weekly Tween Monday program at 4 p.m., on Monday, March 14, at the Natrona County Library. This week, well build a marble maze out of LEGOs and put as many marbles as we can through it. All supplies provided. Call 577-READ ext. 122 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information. After School at the Library Elementary-age students are invited to attend our weekly After School at the Library program at 4 p.m., on Wednesday, March 16, at the Natrona County Library. Come celebrate St. Patricks Day with food and crafts! All supplies provided. Call 577-READ ext. 122 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information. St. Patricks Day at Mountain Plaza Come join the fun as Mountain Plaza Assisted Living, 4154 Talon Dr., celebrates St. Patricks Day at 2 p.m. on Thursday. There will be a special musical guest. Afternoon Book Club An afternoon book discussion will be held at 4 p.m., Thursday, March 17 at Metro Coffee Co. Participants will read Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans. The group is open to teens in grades 7-8. Participants receive a free drink, courtesy of the Friends of the Library. To participate, pick up a copy of Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 in the Librarys Teen Zone. Call 577-READ ext. 101 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information. Baked potato bar for St. Patricks Day Saint Patricks Baked Potato Bar is 5 to 7 p.m., on Thursday at United Church of Christ, 1511 S. Melrose. All you can eat baked potato, toppings, salad and a variety of desserts, all for the excellent price of a free will donation! All-City Cat Show March 19 The theme for this years All City Cat Show is Hollywood Cats, at 9 a.m., on Saturday, March 19, at the Ag Resource Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Rd. Any child age 4 and up and adults can decorate their cats cage, create a cat bed to match this years theme, and come join in the fun. The Natrona County 4-H Cat Show is open to Natrona County 4-H members enrolled in the cat project and Cloverbud members. Pre-register by March 18 for $5 a cat; and on the day of the show at 8 a.m., for $8 a cat. All cats entered must have current vaccination records, a harness or collar and leash, and a cat carrier is recommended. Contestants please bring a carpet square, litter box, food and water for your feline friend. For more information or entry forms, contact Sue at 235-9400 or Rose Jones, show superintendent, at 258-0622. Family LEGO Club The Natrona County Librarys Family LEGO Club will meet at 1 p.m., on Saturday, March 19, at the Library. Family LEGO Club is a great way to have fun, relax and spend time together making this the perfect family activity. The Library will supply a large amount of LEGOs and ideas of what can be created. No registration is required. Family LEGO Club is held the third Saturday of every month. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information. Author Irwin visits Kaycee library Award-winning Casper writer Gayle M. Irwin will speak at the Johnson County Library Kaycee branch at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, March 19. Her program, Dogs with Jobs & the Lessons We Learn, highlights the amazing abilities dogs have and lessons people can learn from them. Irwins therapy dog, Mary, will be there, showcasing one of those canine jobs. The author of several inspirational dog books for children and adults, Irwin also writes for Our Town Casper magazine and regional publications including Wyoming Rural Electric News (WREN) and the Casper Journal. Shes been published in five Chicken Soup for the Soul books and volunteers for several pet rescue groups. A book signing takes place after the program. A portion of sales will be donated to the St. Francis Animal Shelter in Buffalo. Learn more about Irwin at www.gaylemirwin.com. For more information on the program, call the Kaycee Library at (307) 738-2473. Easter goods at Methodist thrift Easter goods and decor are on display at the First United Methodist thrift shop located at 611 W. Collins, one block west of the Natrona County high school football stadium. All other merchandise, clothing, kitchen items, books, decorative knick knacks is drastically reduced in price for winter clearance. Clearance prices will continue to drop gradually till all winter merchandise is gone. But dont wait, shop now because its going out the door fast. We will close the week of April 4-9 to clean and re-stock with an all-new spring and summer inventory. Re-opening day is Monday, April 11. Store hours are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Donations of clean usable merchandise are accepted during those hours. The shop is staffed with friendly helpful volunteers. All proceeds from sales help support Interfaith and Holy Cross Brothers with their work in helping those in the community who need their services. Take advantage of crazy prices for quality goods while contributing to the community. For more information call 234-6611. Road to Resurrection Road to Resurrection, an Easter family event, is set for 3:30 p.m. Saturday, March 19, First Baptist Church, 514 S. Beech St. Step back in time and follow Jesus footsteps through the week leading up to his death and resurrection. RSVP preferred but not required: 234-6946. Italian violinist at symphony Join the Wyoming Symphony orchestra for an epic celebration, with Epic 3rds!, Saturday, March 19 or Sunday, March 20, at Wheeler Concert Hall at Casper College. This concert features two of symphonic musics most famous masterpieces in what promises to be the most stirring performance of our season. Headlining this event is award-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording artist Francesca Dego, performing the virtuosic 3rd Concerto of Camille Saint-Saens, followed by the captivating drama of Johannes Brahms epic 3rd Symphony. Reserve preferred seats by calling 266-1478 or in person at the office, 225 S. David St. Tickets are also available at Wind City Books, Hill Music Company and Wyoming Music. Discounts are available for students and seniors (65+). Visit www.wyomingsymphony.org for more information. Trinity Lutheran hosts midweek services Trinity Lutheran Church, 1240 Missouri St., will have Midweek Lenten Services at 7 p.m. every Wednesday through March 16. Please call 234-0568 for more information. Episcopal Holy Week Caspers Episcopal churches, St. Marks, 7th and Wolcott, and St. Stephens, 4700 S. Poplar, have planned the following schedule of services during Holy Week and Easter: St. Stephens Palm Sunday, March 20: 10 a.m., joint services with Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church, 4600 S.Poplar; Maundy Thursday, March 24:7 p.m., foot washing followed by agape meal; Good Friday, March 25: 7 p.m., Stations of the Cross; Saturday, March 26: 7 p.m. Family friendly Easter Vigil with stories and drama; Easter: 10:30 a.m., Holy Eucharist. St. Marks Palm Sunday, March 20: 9 a.m., Holy Eucharist; Wednesday, March 23: 7 p.m., Reading of the Gospel of Mark; Maundy Thursday, March 24: 7 p.m., Holy Eucharist and foot washing; Good Friday, March 25: Services at 7 a.m., noon and 7 p.m.; Saturday, March 26: 7 p.m., Easter Vigil; Easter, 9 a.m., Festival celebration of Holy Eucharist. Holy Week at E Free Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church, 4100 Casper Mountain Road, invites you to join us for Holy Week services. Why Did Jesus Die? is the theme of the Good Friday Communion service on March 25 at 7 p.m. Nursery will be provided. Why Did Jesus Rise? will be the worship focus for the Easter services on Sunday, March 27 at 7:30 a.m., 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Nursery and childrens ministries will be available at the 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. services. The public is welcome to join us for the celebration of the greatest events in all of history! For more information call 235-6363 or visit www.cornerstonefree.org. Local artists at fort Fort Caspar Museum has mounted a new exhibit of artwork depicting local settings as seen through the eyes Liz Rea and 11 other Casper artists. Titled Local Artists, Local History, it will be on view through April 16. The exhibit was inspired by longtime Casper resident Rea, who combined her interests in architecture and painting to capture many of the citys older buildings several just before they were demolished. In the case of the Henning Hotel, her 1973 sketch catches bricks tumbling from the roof as workers dismantle the once-grand establishment. Also on view are works depicting Casper-area scenes from the museums own collection by Casper artists such as Bob Evans, Ruth Lin Hopkins, Tom Carrigen and Richard Eckhardt-Jacobi. Several depict Fort Caspar, including a detailed rendering of the fort buildings on an old glass jar by Russian-born Boris Bojarnow. Fort Caspar Museums winter hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Admission is $1.50 for adults; $1 for youth (ages 13-18 years); and free for children (12 years and younger). For more information, call the museum at 235-8462, or visit our website at www.fortcasparwyoming.com. Fort Caspar Museum is located at 4001 Fort Caspar Road. Lent at St. Marks The service schedule for St. Marks Episcopal Church during Lent on Wednesday includes 5:30 p.m. soup supper and fellowship followed by Lenten study for children, youth and adults at 6:15 p.m., and concluding with compline at 7:15 p.m. On Fridays during Lent, Holy Eucharist will be celebrated at 7 a.m. at St. Marks. For further information, call St. Marks at 234-0831. Father-Son Duct Tape Duel The 10th annual Father-Son Duct Tape Duel will be hosted from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at Crest Hill Elementary School. Fathers, sons, grandfathers, grandsons, uncles and nephews of school-age boys from 4 years to 13 years are invited to participate. Usable building materials will be donated by sponsors of the event: Pedens Inc., Whats In Store, S.A.M.E. Sportswear, Bush Wells Sporting Goods, Aaker Signs, Kistler Tent & Awning, Sutherlands, Prairie Pella of Wyoming, PPS Janitorial Services, Unique Reflections and Carpet One Commercial Flooring, Inc. Tickets are $20 per two-person team. A meal will be served. Seating is limited, and there will be no tickets available at the door. Tickets must be purchased by March 16 and are available at Express Printing or at the office of Wyoming CARES. The Father-Son Duct Tape Duel is a program of Wyoming CARES. Wyoming CARES is a 501(3) not-for-profit agency with a mission: to provide assistance to Wyoming residents in need. For more information, contact the office of Wyoming CARES at 237-7035. Messiah singalong On Friday, March 25 at 7 p.m., come and join the world in singing Messiah with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square through a live stream via the Internet. Throughout the world, various community, music, and church groups will be using the Internet to join their voices in this unprecedented world gathering. This will be a wonderful way to celebrate the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ with all Christians of the world. The location for the Casper area will be located at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 3931 W. 45th St. Come, sing and interact with other Messiah participants around the world via social media during and after your Messiah experience, using the hashtag #MessiahLive. Sunday support meetings Easter cards workshop Lecture series ends at FUMC First United Methodist Church, Casper, will host a Lenten lecture series, Turning Points in Jesus Life, featuring Dr. James Fleming. It will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Lunch is included. Registration is $10. Fleming serves as director of Biblical Resource Study Center, an ecumenical organization serving Christians around the world. Fleming lived and worked in Israel from 1974 to 2006, where he founded and directed the World of the Bible Archeological Museum and Pilgrim Center in Jerusalem. He also taught at Hebrew University in Israel. Casper First United Methodist Church is located at 332 E. Second St., Casper. You can pre-register by calling 234-9385 or email the office at office@fumccasper.com. Editor: Wyoming is blessed to have had a multitude of very well-qualified individuals representing our state over the years. This election cycle is no different with a number of good candidates in the race for U. S. Congress. But this time our nation and our state are at a critical juncture. We have seen an assault on the Constitution as never before. Our borders are sieve-like and unprotected from the lawless, and the government stands by doing nothing. The current Administration has mounted an all-out attack on the energy and agricultural industries, Wyomings economic mainstays. It is crucial that we send a person to Washington who understands local, national and international issues and has the experience to hit the ground running. That is why I am supporting Liz Cheney. Liz is articulate, possesses deep Wyoming roots, and will be a strong conservative voice for Wyoming and our country. In this crucial year, Liz has shown she is committed to running a campaign based on substance and the issues that matter to the people of Wyoming. Liz Cheney believes in the Wyoming value of limited government and will fight to defend our Constitutional rights and Wyomings interests against intrusive government and regulatory agencies. For more information on this and other issues I would encourage review of her web page: cheneyforwyoming.com. 00:36 by tsup ug Bobi Wine could be the most desirable artiste at the moment. Since he released Ndi Muna Uganda to counter an All Star Tubonga Nawe, he has been looked at as a politically right youth that cares for the issues many locals care about.In Ndi Muna Uganda, he seemed to answer Bebe Cools charges that Bobi is a local artiste whose music never crosses the border, in fact, on a verse the song he hits out at the former and Chameleone for striving to impress two foreigners forgetting the millions of Ugandans that have made them what they are.He would later follow that up with a poorly sought after but lyrically right Dembe which called upon Ugandans to go and vote but remain peaceful. Much as the song was deemed as pro-opposition, many thought it was an ordinary song simply making a relevant communication, but nevertheless, Dembe was bad art.Today, Bobi is riding on yet another politically charged single Situka. The song seems to address the situation that followed the election after results were released frustrated faces and lost hope.He seems to channel his emotions towards Ugandans that supported different candidates and lost telling them that they should pick themselves up and walk rather than give up.The songs is indeed telling Ugandans that change is in their hands, thus, much as they have not emmerged victors, they should stand up to the injustices because no one will do it for them now that even the candidates they had invested their hopes in too have their hopes in the masses.The song that is heavily blended in a reggae feel has Bobi Wine deliver like he rarely does, hes articulate, poetic, and emotional though still calling on Ugandans to give up waiting for institutions but rather play their own part.Earlier before its release, Bobi had shared a rather well-crafted post on social media, in the long write up, the artiste seemed to put himself in the position of the former FDC presidential candidate noting that; When the going gets tough, the tough must get going, especially when our Leaders have become Misleaders and Mentors have become Tormentors. When freedom of expression is met with suppression and oppression, then Opposition becomes Our Position.That post forms the introduction of Situka and many jusic fans have described it as punchy and driving the message home.The series of songs are Bobi Wines redemption after he was accused of backing Jennifer Musisi only a year after criticizing her ways.But its not just Bobi Wine basking in glory after an election, Mathias Walukagga who was prominent on Amama Mbabazis campaign trail has too since released Referee, a song where he seems to note that the election ground only favored a player other than all.However, even when Bobi Wine is on the roll, things may be getting worse or already at the worst for artistes that were part of the Tubonga Nawe project, thats if the backlash they are getting on social media is anything to go by.Bebe Cool has since announced that he will be holding his Life of Bebe Cool on 5 August at Serena Hotel but has been meant with insults. Showing a change in goal posts, unlike the pre-general election times where he would exchange with fans, this time he literally takes a back seat and lets the abuse settle in.In fact, Bebe has since changed his social media posting pattern, these days he goes for more than five days without littering stuff on the web and unconfirmed reports from the Gagamel Phamily indicate that for the first time in many years, the artist may not host his annual Easter Monday East African Carnival that usually takes place in Kiwatule.Haruna Mubiru and Radio and Weasel have already tasted the medicine of annoyed Ugandans, apparently, the diaspora society has kept their word and indeed boycotted their Februarys shows in London and Dubai.While appearing on Dembe FMs Talk and Talk show, Frank Gashumba noted that artistes did no wrong in taking the ruling partys money to do a song for the campaign, but simply had to sing and move on; But if you go as far as branding your car with stickers, going on social media to argue with fans, then youre out of the line.On whether Ugandans have what it takes to boycott shows that are happening, one radio presenter that requested anonymity says that much of the boycott talk is driven by emotions, but fans will attend once the storm is over.Though many argue that laying low for long may make them irrelevant especially in an industry where showing face and multiple releases keep you afloat.For those that had shows flopping in the diaspora, he says that they were ill advised about having concerts amidst a crisis, in his view, artists can lay low until all this passes; Ugandans easily forget and let things go under the rug, if any of the Tubonga Nawe artistes opts for August, they will make their money.He also notes that the boycott activism is rampart on social media which people barely pay for concerts but the downtown people that usually support out of their love for the artiste.So where does this leave Bebe Cool with his shs100,000/= concert in August?He will have the corporates if he decides to have as many complimentary tickets, he says adding that very few Ugandans will be willing to part with such money thus the show will have people but many wont pay a coin.As Gashumba puts it, artistes are like cultural leaders, much as they have the freedom to support, they put themselves in a tight spot when they rally support than they were expected to.These people have supporters that backed NRM, FDC, DP and other parties thus they should be calculative, he noted. PHOENIX A judge on Friday rejected a bid to censure Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump for deleting texts from his state-issued cellphone. But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner wants to see the messages forensic experts were able to recover from the utility regulators phone to determine which, if any, should be made public. Warner said Stump admits he routinely deleted text messages from the phone. Stump later threw away that phone without commission approval. A forensic examination of the next phone the commission gave Stump recovered only some texts from the prior one. The judge said that leaves him no basis to pursue whether Stump illegally deleted public records. Although the question of whether Commissioner Stump failed to preserve public records may well be of public importance, it is not one the court is empowered to decide, Warner wrote. Stump is not off the hook yet. Warner rejected a bid by the Corporation Commission and Stump to throw out a public-records lawsuit filed by a group calling itself the Checks and Balances Project. Warner ordered the Attorney Generals Office, which now has the phone, to review texts and determine which are public records. The judge will then decide whether the public gets to see any. The messages became an issue because a log of Stumps texts, obtained by the commission from Verizon Wireless, showed there were texts between the regulator and the head of a dark money group that was spending to influence the 2014 election, as well as with an executive of regulated utility Arizona Public Service. Rusing Lopez & Lizardi names new partner Patricia Victory Waterkotte is the newest partner at Rusing Lopez & Lizardi, PLLC. She joined the firm in 2013, practicing in complex commercial litigation, education and financial services in Arizona and California. She has been recognized as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers both in Southern California and the Southwest region for business litigation; as a future star in Benchmark Litigations annual guide; and as one of Tucsons 40 Under 40 leaders. A graduate of University High School, Waterkotte was among the first volunteer teen attorneys with Pima County Teen Court in 1995. She served as a congressional intern for Sen. John McCain, and earned her degree in management information systems, magna cum laude, from the University of Arizona. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 2005. Waterkotte is a member of Angel Charity for Children, Inc., and the Morris K. Udall Inn of Court and serves on the Southern District Board of Directors for Junior Achievement of Arizona. Smith joins UAs Tech Launch Arizona Eric Smith has joined the University of Arizona and Tech Launch Arizona as commercialization network manager. He manages Tech Launch Arizonas 1,400-member expert network, and develops strategies to commercialize UA-invented technologies. Smith holds a bachelor of science in business administration degree in management and entrepreneurship from the UA Eller College of Management. He previously was business development manager for Aztera. He is board president of the Tucson Manufacturing Group and a member of the Idea Funding Committee, Eller College Associates, the Tucson Metro Chambers Emerging Leaders Council, and an Arizona advisory member for the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. Perez named Starr Pass executive chef/director JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa has named Daniel Perez to the dual role of executive chef/food and beverage director. Perez joined the resort in 2004 as chef de cuisine for the Signature Grill restaurant, and moved up over the years to banquet chef, executive sous chef and executive chef. In June 2015, Perez was named Iron Chef Tucson. He graduated from the Scottsdale Culinary Art School in 2001 with an associate degree in culinary arts and was previously a sous chef and executive chef at Stuart Andersons Black Angus in Tucson. Truly Nolen promotes Nielsen to manager Truly Nolen Pest Control has promoted Kaylieha Nielsen to manager of its Customer Care Center in Tucson. She will be responsible for training new employees and promoting overall call-center efficiency. Nielsen joined the company in June 2013 and was most recently floor operations supervisor. Johnson, Russo join Foothills Long Realty Darla Johnson and Tom Russo have joined Long Realtys Foothills office. They have nearly 50 years of combined real estate experience, and extensive experience in construction development, design and remodeling, Long said in a news release. Johnson was the 2015 recipient of the Tucson Association of Realtors Outstanding Service Award. She has also served on the TAR Board of Directors for four years. Two local businesses have been permanently banned from operating in Arizona after the Attorney Generals office said they defrauded customers out of thousands of dollars. The office found that A&D Auto Repair and Desert Paving, owned by Anthony Stevens, Richard Stevens and David Stevens, violated the states consumer fraud act, department spokeswoman Mia Garcia said in a news release. The judgment settles a lawsuit filed last June alleging the defendants collected money from customers but never performed work for them, Garcia said. The investigation also found that Anthony Stevens was operating without a valid contractors license. The business owners have been ordered to pay nearly $20,000 in restitution to customers, $100,000 in penalties and $17,000 in states attorneys fees, Garcia said. The businesses are located at 2631 N. Stone Ave. A profound sadness settles in just moments into Arizona Theatre Companys stunning production of Of Mice and Men, which opened Friday. There are so many reasons for that the John Steinbeck Great Depression-era story about Lennie and George, two migrant ranch hands who have dreams and little means to achieve them, doesnt end well. Loneliness hangs over most of the characters like a thick cloud. The poverty is palpable, the inhuman treatment of migrant workers is immoral, the bigotry and sexism outrageous. But it is mostly Lennie that prompts the sorrow. He is a gentle giant with the mind of a child and an ignorance of his almost super-human strength. He loves to pet soft things sometimes he pets them to death. It breaks his heart when that happens. And it terrifies George that Lennie may some day pet something other than a mouse or a rabbit to death. It is stunning how deeply rooted Scott Greer is as Lennie. In his sometimes-twisted hands, Lennies innocence and vulnerability are almost too much to bear. It is people like Lennie that bullies and brutes love to terrorize. Greers Lennie makes it easy to understand why George stays with him as his protector and friend. Theres a quality to Lennie that calls out for protection. Jonathan Wainwrights George has an earthy elegance and a sadness thats just under the surface. These two characters are oddfellows, but in Wainwrights hands we never question Georges loyalty or love. Greer and Wainwright are backed up by a cast that made us feel the dust in our bones and the ache in our hearts. We understand the longing for some human contact by Curleys wife (Kelley Faulkner); the resentment and insight of Crooks (Chike Johnson), the black ranch hand who must live in the barn away from the white men, and the profound desperation of Candy (James Pickering), the aging, one-handed worker who curls up in a fetal position as his old 3-legged dog is led away and shot because he is old and smelly. Director Mark Clements has infused the play with a tension that is surprisingly thick after all, this 79-year-old story is required reading in most schools. We know that the story ends in tragedy. But this ATC staging, a co-production with Milwaukee Repertory Company, reminds us why we still read or watch Of Mice and Men: Writing that sings, a story that compels, and characters that speak to a vulnerability, longing and loneliness that lives in all of us. Jean-Paul Bierny, who led Arizona Friends of Chamber Music for 35 years before retiring last year, will receive the CMAcclaim award from Chamber Music America, the national service organization for chamber musicians, composers, presenters and educators. Chamber Music America will present the award during the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival kickoff concert Sunday, March 13, at Leo Rich Theatre. The award recognizes people whose work in chamber music has had a significant cultural impact on a local or regional community. Under Biernys leadership, Arizona Friends expanded its concert programs to include the Piano and Friends series and the winter festival, both of which he co-founded with other board members in 1994. But it is the Friends commissioning program, which Bierny founded in 1997 and has spearheaded and championed since, that has given the organization its biggest national exposure. Arizona Friends will premiere its 60th commission Heather Schmidts Cello Sonata on Wednesday, March 16 as part of the festival, which runs through March 20. That is very exceptional because every single one of the pieces has been sponsored by a member or several members of the audience, said Bierny, who with his wife, Chris Tanz, sponsored the first-ever commission in February 1997. The couple has been behind a number of commissions since including Ellen Zwilichs Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet in 2008, which she dedicated to Bierny. Bierny, the Belgium-born retired physician, said he shares the Chamber Music America award with the volunteer Arizona Friends board. Without the whole board entirely volunteers and participating actively nothing would have happened, he said. Im so happy for him and proud and excited, added Tanz. He really poured himself into this for all these years and had a huge amount of satisfaction doing it, but its nice to have this national acknowledgment for him and for the organization, and for this town. If your church is holding an Easter Sunday service, please email details to jwillett@tucson.com to be considered for a print listing. Freethought Arizona to host ex-preacher Freethought Arizona will host a talk 10 a.m. Sunday, March 13, in the DuVal Auditorium at Banner University Medical Center Tucson, 1501 N. Campbell Ave. Dan Barker, a former preacher and now co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, will give the free talk titled God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction, according to press materials. For more information, visit freethoughtarizona.org Aurora victims parents to speak at church St. Marks Presbyterian Church, 3809 E. Third Street, will host the parents of a victim of the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooting for a meeting of Gun Violence Prevention Arizona, a Tucson organization. Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, the parents of Jessica Ghawi, will discuss their views on the responsibilities of sellers of firearms and ammunition, according to press materials. Music by Tucson artists Sabra Faulk and Mitzi Cowell will follow the presentation, which begins 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 14. The event is free, but donations will be accepted to help pay for the familys travel. For more information, visit gvparizona.org. 2 Tucsonans to discuss conflict in Holy Land Two Tucsonans with Palestinian backgrounds will speak at a Theology Uncorked discussion at Most Holy Trinity Parish, 1300 N. Greasewood Road. Mohyeddin Abdulaziz, chief information officer at the Arizona Court of Appeals, and Thabet Khalidi, a lawyer, will discuss the Holy Land and the conflict between Israel and Palestine, according to press materials. The free talk titled The Holy Land: Whose God Is It? begins at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, March 14. PHOENIX If state Rep. Chris Ackerley gets his way, more motorists will soon be able to escape tickets for running red lights. The Sahuarita Republican said thats not his goal. But he acknowledged its one of the side effects of his bid to conform Arizona law with 48 other states. Heres the change: State law makes it illegal to enter an intersection after the light turns red. But Arizona along with only Alaska defines the intersection as the line parallel with the curb. Put simply, if you can get your front bumper across that imaginary line before the light turns red, you cant be ticketed for running a red light. Thats why cities with red-light cameras position their sensors just past that imaginary line. Nothing in HB 2593 would alter the law prohibiting entering an intersection after the red light. Instead, it would redefine what constitutes an intersection to extend that to the stop line, crosswalk or yield line, whichever comes first. And what that would mean is any motorist whose front bumper crosses that first line before the light turns red would be legally home free, even if the light has changed by the time the vehicle crosses the imaginary curb line that now defines an intersection. Ackerley said he believes thats what drivers assume about the law. People are making the decision to stop here, he said, pointing to the stop line painted across the road before the intersection. The other side of the equation, though, is that moving back the point at which someone is considered to have run a red light means a vehicle racing to beat it could still be in the intersection by the time cross traffic has a green light. But state law already requires motorists to yield to any traffic already in the intersection, green light or not. And Ackerley said he presumes those responsible for traffic signals will make adjustments to the length of time the light is red all around to ensure that vehicles get a chance to clear the intersection before cross traffic is allowed. There is one bit of fallout from the change. Right now a motorist who stops just short of that imaginary line even with the curb the current definition of intersection cannot be cited for entering the intersection. But under his legislation, it would be a violation if the vehicle is even just a hair beyond the stop line, even if it remains far back from any cross traffic. Ackerley, however, said hes not concerned about that possibility. If you have traveled past the stop line, past obstructing the crosswalk, and are now sitting right there (just short of the line parallel with the curb), nobodys going to stop right there in the real world, he said. And there is a separate state law making it illegal to block a crosswalk. Ackerley said hes not trying to make it easier for motorists to escape citations. The bill would simply make sure it conforms with the rest of the country, he said, including what is taught to people who learned to drive in other states. His measure already has cleared the House on a unanimous vote and now awaits a hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee. The TUSD Governing Board is poised to pass a resolution critical of a state law that prohibits classroom lessons promoting homosexuality. A resolution presented to the governing board Tuesday during a study session on comprehensive sexual education contained language that described that provision of the law as offensive and shaming and has no place in Arizona education policy. While the resolution would make clear the districts disdain for that provision because it excludes segments of the student population, TUSD says it would still comply while working toward inclusive change. The resolution is modeled after an inclusion resolution adopted in the Phoenix Union High School District and was shared with the TUSD board by its legal counsel Julie Tolleson . TUSD says it has worked to develop policies and practices that promote respect for diversity in the areas of gender, gender identity, race and ethnicity, languages and countries of origin, religious beliefs, family structures and status, and varying abilities. Some Arizona lawmakers have worked to get stricken from state law existing provisions prohibiting school instruction that promotes a homosexual lifestyle, portrays homosexuality as a positive alternative lifestyle or says there are safe methods for homosexual sex. I think its really important that we promote medically accurate sex education, said Rep. Stefanie Mach, D-Tucson, a sponsor of the bill. And I think we need to acknowledge that there is a variety of ways that you can have safe and healthy relationships and its really not the governments role to decide what those are as long as theyre medically safe and that information is accurate. The effort, however, appears to be doomed due to resistance from others in the Legislature, Mach said. I think these are antiquated ideas and we need to start catching up with the reality of the world and with culture, she said. STUDENT EFFORT The effort to update TUSDs sex education offerings was inspired by a group of TUSD and University of Arizona students who have been attending Governing Board meetings for months, calling for effective programming. While praising their educational experience in TUSD schools, the young advocates have criticized sex education they say is so inadequate that students often rely on Google to answer any questions of substance. That can lead to misinformation, said Grace Liatti, a Tucson High Magnet School junior. In my own experience having taken health last year, I didnt feel that it was impactful nor that it translated into the real world, added University High School sophomore Deja Foxx. The students are not only asking for medically accurate sex education, but also for curriculum that addresses the emotional aspect of sex, creating healthy relationships, understanding boundaries and respect for self and others. I think in any sort of meaningful, well-taught sex ed class, the lessons they learn carry on after middle school, after high school, after college and those are the best types of lessons for creating educated, intellectual, confident adults, Liatti told the TUSD board. A proposed policy drafted for the boards consideration addressed those issues as well as bullying, dating violence and risk reduction surrounding unintended pregnancy, contraceptives and sexually transmitted infections. The board did not take a vote on the proposed policy or resolution Tuesday. Instead, a more in-depth study session is scheduled for April and approval could come in May. In addition to changing the policy, the board would also need to approve the specific curriculum after the public has been given an opportunity for review and feedback. The youth advocacy effort swayed board clerk Kristel Foster to join board president Adelita Grijalva in asking that the policy be reviewed. Hearing the testimony from students on their sex education experiences in our schools, that was concerning to me, Foster said. So I went and looked at what the policy says and what the law says and I think theres room to do more than what we are and still follow the law. Board member Cam Juarez said he believes it is the districts responsibility to offer comprehensive sex education but as a parent he understands the sensitive nature of the issue and recognizes the need to give parents the final say as to whether it is the kind of content they want their children exposed to. Anna Keene, a representative for the University of Arizonas Voices for Planned Parenthood and a Tucson High graduate, is pleased the Governing Board has heard students, especially given the states No. 6 ranking for teen pregnancy in the nation. I currently attend U of A and I have seen myself and others who have attended TUSD deal with circumstances that could have been avoided with more information through comprehensive sex ed and health programs, she said. I think future students can benefit from having comprehensive sex ed. PHOENIX Arizona schools will be able to use assessments other than the one linked to Common Core to determine how well their students are doing. Without comment, Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Friday to let the state Board of Education offer alternatives to the AzMERIT test, the one now mandated by board policy. It will also allow schools to propose their own ideas for options. Other measures signed by the governor Friday will: Allow prosecutors to pursue people who post naked photos of others on the Internet with the intent to harm them. Expand the definition of child prostitution to include anyone who knowingly provides a means for a minor to engage in prostitution. Retroactively make it more difficult for formation of municipal improvement districts where local property owners are taxed for services beyond what the city provides. Permit crime victims to present evidence in court hearings to determine whether and how much compensation should be provided by those who broke the law. The measure on revenge porn takes effect immediately; the others become law 90 days after the Legislature finally adjourns. School testing Current law requires all public schools to annually assess students to determine how well they are doing, both individually and overall. Those scores become the basis for grading schools on an A-F system, and that grade eventually can result in the state taking control of a low-performing school. The current test, formally known as Arizonas Measurement of Educational Readiness to Inform Teaching, is linked to the Common Core academic standards the Board of Education adopted in 2010. There has been stiff opposition to those standards from some who contend it amounts to the federal government dictating what is taught to children. The Board of Education has formally unlinked the state standards from Common Core, though the basic standards remain in place. And there are separate objections from some parents who do not want their children subjected to these kinds of assessments. The Senate earlier this week killed legislation to allow parents to opt their children out of these tests. But they did agree to adopt the proposal by Rep. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, to provide alternatives to AzMERIT. Under the terms of the law, the State Board of Education would adopt a menu of assessment tests. Beginning in the 2018 school year, high schools could choose from anything on the list. The following year, options would be available for lower grades. The education board will have to annually evaluate whether other tests should be added to the list. Boyer acknowledged that one reason the state has settled on a single test is that it makes it easier for all involved, including parents, to see how students are doing at individual schools. But he said his legislation requires the board to ensure that results among different tests can be equated to allow such comparisons. Not every school will qualify: Schools rated D or F are stuck with AzMERIT or whatever test the education board decides should replace it. revenge porn The measure on Internet posting is designed to address revenge porn. Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, said its not unusual for couples to take naked pictures of each other or for one person to send such a photo to a boyfriend or girlfriend. The problem, he said, is when the relationship ends, often badly, and the jilted partner decides to get even by posting those photos on the Web. Legislation adopted in 2014 to make that a crime ran into legal problems, forcing Mesnard to recraft the measure to build in some limits on who would be liable, including a requirement that prosecutors show the image was disclosed with the intent to harm, harass, intimidate, threaten or coerce the depicted person. pimp laws The measure on child prostitution is designed to make it easier for prosecutors to go after pimps. Existing law already makes it a crime to profit from the earnings of a child prostitute. But Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, said that requires proof that some of the childs earnings made their way to the adult. The new law says an adult violates the law the moment he or she furnishes a child with a hotel, cellphone or anything else designed to allow that minor to commit a sex act for money. improvement districts The issue with municipal-improvement districts relates to the fact that Arizona law allows property owners to decide if they want more than a city provides, like landscaping and street improvements. These are sometimes used by businesses in a particular neighborhood in hopes of enhancing the area. Whats at issue is that improvement costs become part of the property taxes. The new law adds a burden of requiring the consent of half the number of area property owners, who must also own more than half of the assessed valuation for property tax purposes. Help India! By Abdul Hameed, TwoCircles.net, Mumbai: The appointment of K P Raghuvanshi as Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief has triggered anger among the Muslims especially those of Malegaon. Support TwoCircles Kul Jamatee Tanzeem a group of various Muslim organizations while welcoming the Bombay High Court verdict ordering the earliest appointment of the ATS chief, has condemned the appointment of Raghuvanshi ATS chief and called it rubbing salts on the injuries of the Malegaon 2006 blasts accused and the peace loving people. Raghuvanshi yesterday formally took charge of ATS. Post of ATS chief has been vacant since 26/11 attack on Mumbai when the then chief Hemant Karkare was killed in action. In a meting held on June 14 by Kul Jamatee Tanzeem the famous Muslims scholar and social worker Maulana Abdul Hameed Azhari asked the Congress-NCP state government to revise its decision of appointing Raghuvanshi as ATS chief. Talking to TwoCircles.net Azhari said that being a citizen of a democratic country like India we raise our voice against the appointment of Raghuvanshi because he is (allegedly) responsible for the tortures meted out on Muslim innocent youths in Malegaon blasts by ATS when it was headed by Raghuvanshi. A Shia Isna Ashari leader Arif, reportedly said that Raghuvanshi has been responsible for all the torture ATS did on Muslims during May 2006 Aurangabad weapons seizure case to September 29, 2008 Bhikko Chowk blasts. He added, to make such a biased officer the ATS chief is tantamount to encouraging him. Meanwhile, a delegation of Malegaon Nationalist Congress Party led by Haji Muhammad Yusuf will meet the Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and minister of state for home on June 17, in order to inform them of the feelings of Malegaon and Mumbai Muslims regarding the appointment of Raghuvanshi as ATS chief. Yusuf in a press release has condemned the appointment and said that it will damage the image of the party among Muslims. The Kul Jamatee Tanzeem has decided to arrange a gathering in Malegaon on next Friday to protest Raghuvanshi appointment as ATS chief. Help India! By TwoCircles.net Staff reporter, Mumbai: Khalid Azmi,33, a younger brother of slain advocate Shahid Azmi has received a direct threat of being killed in a similar manner as like his brother. Support TwoCircles The incident took place late on Tuesday night just outside the Kurla police station when three unidentified men approached Khalid, threatened him and ran away. Kurla police has registered non cognizable (NC) complaint in the matter with section of criminal intimidation under the Indian Penal Code. One of the officers attached with the Kurla police confirmed the incident to media and said, There are no CCTV cameras to have recorded the threat, we are further verifying the complaint. Khalid Azmi, a younger brother of murdered Advocate Shahid Azmi Shahid Azmi, a well known Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind lawyer who used to defend terror accused was gunned down in February 2010 outside his office in Kurla. Speaking with TwoCircles.net Khalid told, I was waiting outside the police station to meet an acquaintance when a well built person came and threatened me of meeting my brothers fate. There were two more persons standing behind him. All three ran away after issuing the threat. Jaise tere bhai ko mara tha aur woh kuch ukhad nahi saka ussi tarah tere ko bhi marenge, Khalid claims the front man amongst three told him. He said the person who spoke to him was dark in complexion and was well built. Despite this criminal intimidation, Khalid told, Police declined to register FIR and only recorded 4 lines of NC. I could not sleep whole night due to the unexpected event but police took it very lightly. On asking if he has written to police commisioner and asked for security, he told, I was shocked after the incidence and immediately approached police station. After filing complaint there I asked my friends to phone some higher authorities and media. Now that couple of days have passed and no moves have been taken by police, I will write to commissioner and will seek security, he added. Khalid is also an advocate who started practice after murder of his brother in 2010. Initially he assisted Jamiat lawyers in terror cases but later on parted ways and started his individual practice at session court. David Bowies enduring talent in the arts continues to provide interest north of the border, with the announcement of the sale of a rare self-portrait next week in Edinburgh. Fans and music lovers have already shown their attraction to his back catalogue of albums, now they can observe the breadth of his creativity provided that they have at least 3,000 in their budget. Breadth to Bowies creativity His music lives on both in the memories of his ardent followers and (most likely) through their record and DVD collections. Less well-known one suspects though is Bowies ability to communicate via the medium of the canvas and paintbrush. Bowie donated the work in 1998 Lyon & Turnbulls sale of contemporary paintings on 16th March will include an artwork by the late Starman entitled DHEAD, with provisional estimates suggesting that the lot could fetch between 3,000 and 5,000 at the auction. The work had previously been donated by Bowie as part of the fundraising campaign for the ArtAid 98 exhibition, which was hosted by Edinburgh back in 1998. Changing image Bowie became notorious for altering his own musical image throughout his career, so the concept of being able to reflect his mood and thoughts through painting in addition seems totally in keeping with his artistic tastes. His paintings of abstract head studies are believed to have been influenced by the 1930s era of German Expressionist Art. Known art lover Besides producing artworks himself, Bowie was a lover of art in general. He stated as much during an interview in 1998 with the New York Times: Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own. Reflecting his own admiration for and influence by the medium, he added at the time that art could change the way that I feel in the mornings. Blurring lines between the arts The picture specialist at Lyon & Turnbull, Charlotte Riordan reflected Bowies close affection for art when commenting on the forthcoming sale. Although admitting that he will be best-known and connected with the music industry, she suggested that his entire career was spent actively blurring the lines between the art forms of music, performance and design; the visual playing as big a part as the aural. Admiration for several artists He particularly admired artists such as Frank Auerbach, Francis Picabia and David Bomberg. French artist Marcel Duchamps sense of humour if not so much his talent in the art stakes is also believed to have interested him. Sizeable personal collection Although he sometimes played down the size of his personal art collection, Bowie did admit to owning a limited number of works by the likes of Tintoretto and Rubens. His preference though seemed to be for British 20th century art by less well-known names, but usually typifying a particular point in time in his mind. Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. With just days until primary elections take place in Florida and Ohio, Donald Trump continues to lead all of his Republican challengers. Despite his success, violent outbursts have become the norm at his recent rallies. Chicago street fight As the billionaire real estate mogul was set to speak to a crowd of supporters at the University of Chicago, protesters stormed the venue. Multiple reports note that fights started to break out between Trump supporters and protesters, causing the GOP front runner to cancel the event, as reported by CNN on March 11. Fistfights between Trump supporters and protesters erupted after Chicago rally canceled. https://t.co/HAhU3MmiMf pic.twitter.com/2WxbYof5JT CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) March 12, 2016 With the arena filling up, the atmosphere resembled a scene from WWE Monday Night Raw, rather than a campaign rally. Protesters chanted "Bernie, Bernie" in support of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. As tempers grew high, the Trump campaign decided to cancel the rally, citing "security concerns." Crowd now chanting "Bernie! Bernie!" at Donald Trump's postponed rally in Chicago. pic.twitter.com/UoX27nVS2I Bill Ruthhart (@BillRuthhart) March 12, 2016 Protesters chanted "We stopped Trump," as they were told to leave the area, with numerous fist fights occurring across the building. As the groups exited, the police were forced to separate the rival factions to prevent further acts of violence. The scene here after @realDonaldTrump canceled his Chicago rally. Protesters celebrate chanting "We stopped Trump" pic.twitter.com/EDRxcKtwGr Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) March 12, 2016 History of violence Over the last two weeks, the 2016 election has heated up, most notably during rallies for the former host of "The Apprentice." Two separate rallies on Feb. 29 resulted in violent acts or questionable behavior. In Virginia, TIME Magazine photographer Chris Morris got into an altercation with a Secret Service agent. Moments later, the agent grabbed Morris by the throat and slammed him to the ground. Hours later in Georgia, Trump instructed his Secret Service agents to remove 30 African-American students from his rally, despite all reports describing the group as "standing silently" by a set of bleachers. Since that time, members of the Black Lives Matter movement have made their presence known, infiltrating various events across the country. One female African-American protester was shoved by a crowd of white Trump supporters, and during a recent rally in North Carolina, a Trump supporter sucker punched a black protester who was making his way through the crowd. While Trump has been getting negative press because of the incidents, he is still the favorite to become the party's nominee at the Republican National Convention in July. China welcomes EU approval of China-France deal to build nuclear plant in UK Updated: 2016-03-12 10:24 (Xinhua) BEIJING - China welcomed the EU's approval of a deal between Electricite de France (EDF) and China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) for the construction of the Hinkley Point nuclear plant in the United Kingdom, on Friday. "We have noticed that leaders of Britain and France pledged their support for the Hinkley Point project recently," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei told a daily news briefing. During Chinese President Xi Jinping's Britain visit last year, Chinese and French companies signed an agreement to build an 18 billion pounds ($26 billion) nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwestern England. Now the Chinese and French companies are positively implementing the agreement, Hong said. China supports the companies carrying out tripartite cooperation in nuclear power on the basis of mutual benefit, Hong said, expressing his hope that the Hinkley Point project will keep making progress so as to enrich pragmatic China-Britain and China-France cooperation. Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Loading... Checking your browser before accessing the website. This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly. Please wait a few seconds. Last year, export revenue reached US$1.85 billion for fruits and vegetables, an increase of more than 24 per cent over 2014, the association said. VNA/VNS Photo Quang Nhut HCM CITY (VNS) Viet Nams fruit and vegetables export will continue to enjoy good growth this year, according to the Viet Nam Fruit and Vegetables Association (Vinafruit). Last year, export revenue reached US$1.85 billion for fruits and vegetables, an increase of more than 24 per cent over 2014, the association said. In the first two months of the year, revenue from fruit and vegetable exports went up by 39 per cent over the same period last year. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Viet Nam exported more than 40 kinds of fruits and vegetables to over 40 countries and territories. Fastidious markets such as the US, Australia, EU and Japan have opened their doors to Vietnamese fruits like longan, litchi and mango. The Chau Thanh Co-operative in An Giang Province, for instance, exported more than 100 tonnes of fresh longan to the US and EU last year. Earlier this year the cooperative signed an order to export nearly 100 tonnes of fresh longan to the US. More cultivation areas have met VietGap and GlobalGap standards as well as hygiene and food safety requirements set by importers, the ministry said. In addition, businesses have enhanced their trade promotions to seek new customers. The agricultural sector is speeding up negotiations with countries aiming to boost export of key fresh fruits, including dragon fruit, rambutan, longan, litchi, mango and pomelo. Many other demanding markets will continue to open their doors to Viet Nams fruits and vegetables this year, it said. However, exports of fruit and vegetables is largely dependent on Asian countries, especially the Chinese market, the association said. Enterprises need to diversify their export markets. To ensure quality, companies should invest in advanced technologies to process fruit and vegetable products as well as develop closer links with farmers from plantation to processing. VNS At the end of 2015, Vietinbanks total assets valued at VND779 trillion (US$34.9 billion), a 17.8 per cent increase over 2014. File Photo HA NOI (VNS) Vietinbank has signed a syndicated loan worth US$200 million with 18 international banks in Taipei. The foreign currency loan will provide the bank with funds for production and business activities of enterprises, Vietinbank said in a statement on its website. At the end of 2015, Vietinbanks total assets valued at VND779 trillion (US$34.9 billion), a 17.8 per cent increase over 2014. Its outstanding loan reached VND674 trillion, growing 24.2 per cent compared with 2014. The bank earned a pre-tax syndicated profit of VND7.36 trillion in 2015, apart from the return on average equity (ROAE) and return on average assets (ROAA) which were 10.2 per cent and 1.0 per cent, respectively. According to the latest report of Brand Finance on Banking 500 on the worlds most valuable banking brands, Vietinbank made the top 400, climbing from the 437 to the 379, making its global brand value of $249 million. It was in the list in 2012, 2013 and 2015. The loan, led by BNP Paribas and Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank, was funded by banks including Commerzbank AG in Luxembourg, Taiwan Cooperative Bank, BDO Unibank, Inc. and Chang Hwa Ltd., in addition to Land Bank of Taiwan in Singapore, Bank of Taiwan, Far Eastern International Bank and Jih Sun International Bank, Ltd. The other banks were Sunny Bank Ltd., Taishin International Bank, and the Export-Import Bank of the Republic of China. VNS Choreographic: A banner promoting the performance of Murmur 2.0 in Viet Nam. - Photo/Courtesy of the British Council. HCM CITY The acclaimed British choreographer and dancer Aakash Odedra is to perform in Viet Nam on March 23, 26 and 27. Odedra will perform Murmur 2.0, the visually beautiful, heart-wrenching and dramatic piece that he presented at TEDGlobal as a TED Talk. The performance is part of the British Councils work in showcasing the best of British contemporary dance in Viet Nam. It also marks another partnership between the British Council and HSBC Viet Nam after the bank sponsored the world-renowned English National Ballet tour in Viet Nam a few years ago. The two intensely personal solo pieces of Murmur and Nritta will be staged on March 23 at Ha Noi Opera House, and on March 26-27 at the Ho Chi Minh Opera House. Cherry Gough, director of the British Council Viet Nam said, 2016 is a special year full of exciting activities for the British Council as we celebrate Shakespeares work worldwide on the 400th anniversary of his death. To make this year even more memorable, we are delighted to be co-operating with HSBC Viet Nam to introduce Aakash Odedra, one of the most sought-after contemporary British dancers today. Aakash has developed his own choreographic works including the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations and the closing of the London Cultural Olympiad, and has received numerous awards and bursaries including a Sky Academy Arts Scholarship. We hope audiences in Viet Nam will be both entertained and inspired by this beautiful and thought-provoking performance, Gough said. In Nritta, choreographed by Odedra, the audience can see a dazzling display of technical feats. He moves with such agility that it is hard for the eye to follow. His feet beat out the rhythms, his gestures sweep and swerve, and throughout he remains poised and in control. This show establishes Odedra not just as Akram Khans protege or a rising star of Indian fusion dance in Britain, but as a highly interesting young creative voice. His dancing is a pleasure to watch, particularly when he returns to the Kathak classical idiom and shows us the talent and training that first brought him to Khans notice, said Hanna Weibye of www.theartsdesk.com. Tickets are available at the two venues, or can be booked online via www.ticketvn.com and www.ticketbox.vn. VNS Friendship fair: A traditional Thai dance show. - Photo dulich-thailan.net HCM CITY A Thai-themed fair introducing the culture of Thailand will be held in HCM City on March 25-27 to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Thailand and Viet Nam. A Thai Village in HCM City will be among several events to commemorate the long-lasting friendship of 40 years. It will include Thai trade fairs, a CEO night, book fair and student exchange programme. These activities demonstrate the multi-faceted relationship that our two countries have shared for the past four decade, said Royal Thai Consul General Panpimon Suwannapongse. The festival will take place at the September 23rd Park in downtown HCM City. It will include a trade fair, cultural performance, and exhibition of Thai private business sector that have contributed to the growth of Viet Nams vibrant economy. There will be three main areas, including the trade fair for Thai products available in Viet Nam, an exhibition hall for the Thai private sector, and a restaurant zone where people can sample authentic Thai cuisine from leading Thai restaurants in HCM City. An on-stage cultural performance of Thai and Vietnamese artists will be organised every night. The three-day event will be a great opportunity for the Vietnamese public to learn more about Thailand as well as the bonds between our two nations, she said. The event, which will see the attendance of Thailands Minister of Culture and leaders of HCM City, will be free and open to the public. Money raised during the event will be donated to charity. VNS Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (right) meets with Lao Minister Boviengkham Vongdaram in Ha Noi. VNA/VNS Photo Phuong Hioa HA NOI (VNS) Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked the ministries of Science and Technology of Viet Nam and Laos to maintain experience sharing in managing science and technology activities, while welcoming Lao Minister Boviengkham Vongdara. Appreciating the two ministries coordination in contents related to science and technology in a five-year agreement signed at the 38th meeting of the Viet Nam-Laos Inter-governmental Committee, Phuc on Thursday suggested they support the training of management officials for Laos, and collaborate more closely at international forums and organisations in this field. The Vietnamese ministry should continue helping to increase the research capacity of the Lao side through the two countries joint research projects and to develop scientific and technological applications to facilitate Lao localities socio-economic growth, he stated. He also expressed his hope that the ministries will maintain close coordination to ensure the progress of a project to build a science and technology management official training centre for Laos. The Lao minister told the host that his visit will focus on the intellectual property issue and scientific and technological transfer between Viet Nam and Laos. He affirmed that the project is being implemented on schedule. In the time ahead, the ministry will make efforts to carry out the project to intensify the capacity of scientific research and technological development for the National Academy of Social Sciences. VNS President Truong Tan Sang addresses the 2nd Viet Nam - Tanzania Business Forum on Thursday. He wrapped up the visit to the country yesterday and went to Mozambique on the same day for a three-day visit. VNA/VNS Photo Nguyen Khang HA NOI (VNS) President Truong Tan Sang wrapped up his State visit to Tanzania yesterday reaching dozens of agreements to elevate the two countries co-operation. A joint communique on the March 8-11 visit said Presidents Truong Tan Sang and John Magufuli shared the belief that their countries relationship, built on the foundation created by Presidents Ho Chi Minh and Julius Nyerere, will advance robustly in all fields. The leaders expressed their desire to broaden the existing relations and seek new co-operation opportunities in trade, investment, education, science and technology, food processing, animal feed production, aquaculture, footwear and apparel, farming machinery, cement manufacturing, the building of low-cost houses and petro-chemistry. Agreeing to deepen the two countries ties, they underscored the need to foster comprehensive co-operation. According to the communique, the two sides must raise bilateral trade to US$1 billion by 2020. They pledged to do more to push for the signing of an agreement on the avoidance of double taxation and another on investment promotion and protection. They backed the operations of Vietnamese enterprises, like the military-run telecom group Viettel, PetroVietnam and Hapro in Tanzania, while stressing the important role played by the Vietnam-Tanzania Joint Committee, which was set up in 2004 and will convene its second meeting in 2016. The countries renewed their commitments to promoting peace and security globally and regionally in compliance with the UN Charter and international law, continuing to work together to defend basic principles of international law especially pertaining to the handling of disputes by peaceful measures. Before leaving Dar Es Salaam for Mozambique, President Sang received Agriculture Minister Christopher Chiza and several businesspeople, who asked for Viet Nams support for partnerships in breeding, plantation and post-harvest processing. During his State visit to the African nation from March 11-13, President Sang is expected to discuss with his Mozambican counterpart measures to enhance co-operation between the two countries. VNS President Truong Tan Sang meets with Mozambicans during his visit to Maputo. - VNA/VNS Photo Nguyen Khang MAPUTO (VNS) Viet Nam and Mozambique will work on concrete measures to boost their ties, according to talks between visiting Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang and his Mozambican counterpart, Filipe Jacinto Nyusi. The talks were held following a welcome ceremony for President Sang with the highest rituals for a Head of State in the capital city of Maputo on Saturday. President Sang expressed his delight at visiting the country after seven years in office, and spoke highly of Mozambiques socio-economic achievements and reform in recent years. President Nyusi hailed President Sangs visit the first made by a Vietnamese State leader, as a significant milestone in bilateral ties. He said he considers Viet Nam a symbol of heroism for its national liberation and admires the country for its successes reaped during the national construction and development process. Regarding political relations, both sides committed to facilitating all-level visits and supporting each other at international forums and organisations. On regional and global issues of shared concern, the two countries pledged continued efforts to maintain global peace and stability, agreeing that territorial border issues must be settled by peaceful means in line with international law. President Sang thanked Mozambique for backing his countrys bid for a seat at the UN Economic and Social Council for 2016-18. He also requested the African countrys support for Viet Nam to become a member of the International Law Commission for the 2017-21 tenure and a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the period 2020-21. They agreed that the Inter-Governmental Committee and political consultation mechanism between the two Foreign Ministries should be made regular with a variety of specific goals. Both parties said that trade between the two nations remains modest, and they vowed to direct ministries and departments to discuss specific measures to lift two-way trade to at least $500 million by 2020. Viet Nam asked Mozambique to create an economic co-operation framework conducive to their business communities, with the construction of a bonded warehouse as an immediate plan. The two leaders expressed delight at the Movitel joint venture between Viet Nams telecommunication group Viettel and Mozambiques SPI Company, stating that its success is a testament to Viet Nams effective investment in Mozambique. President Nyusi said Mozambique highly values the contributions Movitel has made to the countrys socio-economic development, and agreed to expand the co-operation model to other fields such as petroleum, trade, agricultural processing and construction. The two sides agreed to boost connections in agriculture and aquatic products. President Nyusi said Mozambique appreciates the success of the rice-growing project between Viet Nam, Mozambique and Japan, which introduced high-yield varieties in the country. He said Mozambique hopes Viet Nam will send experts to work at its aquatic research institute and help develop fish breeding models at sea. The two leaders also shared the view that relevant ministries and sectors should accelerate the delayed joint project on planting rubber trees. In the field of transport, the Mozambican President said his country wants to foster ties with Viet Nam in navigation and marine transport, adding that it is drafting a law calling for private investment in the sector. He also suggested Viet Nam continue to help his country in training staff for the maritime sector. The Vietnamese side said it was willing to assist Mozambique in training staff for information technology, military medicine and telecommunications as well as share its experience in preventing and fighting natural disasters, crime, terrorism, violence and wildfires. The two leaders agreed to accelerate negotiations for the signing of agreements on the protection of confidential information, extradition and the transfer of sentenced prisoners. They also reached a consensus on the early organisation of the fourth Inter-Governmental Committee to realise agreements reached during their talks. After the talks, the two Presidents oversaw the signing of the Annex to the Protocol on co-operation in education and training between the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training and Mozambiques Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development. President meets Mozambican leaders President Truong Tan Sang and his Mozambican counterpart Filipe Jacinto Nyusi watch the Mozambican Armys guard of honour. VNA/VNS Photos Nguyen Khang President Truong Tan Sang met Speaker of the Parliament of Mozambique Veronica Macamo and Secretary General of the ruling Liberation Front (Frelimo) Party Eliseu Machava in Maputo on Saturday (local time). Speaker Macamo hailed the visit as an important milestone in bilateral ties and affirmed her determination to strengthen experience-sharing between the two legislatures, work closely at inter-parliamentary organisations and intensify bilateral ties in economics, trade, telecommunications and agriculture. She proposed signing a co-operative agreement between the two legislatures. The President spoke highly of the Mozambican Parliaments role in national development. In a separate meeting with Frelimo Party leader Machava, the Vietnamese leader briefed his host about the outcomes of the 12th National Party Congress. He called on the two countries to maintain close co-operation and said he believed that under the sound leadership of the Frelimo Party, Mozambique will reap more successes throughout the nations development, fostering the traditional friendship between the two Parties and peoples. Machava said Frelimo appreciates and always does its best to solidify its long-standing ties with Viet Nam. He thanked Viet Nam for sharing experiences with Frelimo in Party-building and personnel training. A number of Party members who took training courses in Viet Nam ascended to high ranks in the Party. The same day, President Sang and President Nyusi attended the Mozambique-Viet Nam business forum co-hosted by the Confederation of Business Associations and the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with nearly 200 firms taking part. While discussing the goal to raise two-way trade to $500 million by 2020, a majority of participants said they highly valued Viet Nams potential in various fields, particularly in farm produce processing, garments and wooden furniture. With Mozambiques strengths in crude materials, they described it as fertile ground for Vietnamese investors. President Nyusi said in its Look East policy, the Mozambican Government focused on the areas of agriculture, energy, tourism, construction and transport, and has offered incentives to attract foreign investment. He asked the two business communities to continue discussing a plan to open a bonded warehouse and launch an inter-bank payment mechanism. He said he believes that with Vietnamese and Mozambican leaders support, more and more Vietnamese firms will come to Mozambique, following the success of Movitel. Also on the same day, President Sang visited Movitel and met Vietnamese nationals living in the country. The State leader and his associates left Maputo yesterday, concluding their Mozambican visit and embarking on a trip to Iran. According to a joint statement issued following his visit, the two countries leaders agreed to facilitate high-level visits and deepen bilateral ties in farming, aquaculture, maritime transport, aviation, education-training, health care, science-technology, national defence-security and disaster mitigation. Both sides expressed their wish to strengthen consultation mechanisms and coordinate efforts on multilateral issues to protect the interests of developing countries and promote fairer development in a global political and economic order. VNS The project for the development of green cities will be implemented in Ha Giang, Vinh Phuc and Thua Thien Hue provinces. VNA/VNS Photo Quoc Viet HA NOI (VNS) Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved the funding of nearly US$224 million for Secondary Cities Development Project (Green Cities). The money will be borrowed from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The project will be carried out over five years in the three secondary cities, including Ha Giang in the northern province of Ha Giang, Vinh Yen in the northern province of Vinh Phuc and Hue in the central province of Thua Thien - Hue, Focusing on urban services, flood protection, urban sewerage, and urban solid waste management, the project aims to improve and expand traffic systems and infrastructure, promote socio-economic development and tourism and increase peoples incomes. It will also help cut pollution by improving drainage systems, waste treatment and environment sanitation. The project is part of effort of cities around Asia and the Pacific which are identifying ways of making their environment healthier and more livable through the improvement of air, water and land. Viet Nam is rapidly urbanizing with a structural shift from agriculture to industry and services. Its challenge is to maintain its development prospects by minimising risks associated with urbanisation, according to Viet Nam Economic Times. The Korea International Co-operation Agency (KOICA) and the construction ministry last year signed an agreement on a technical assistance project for establishing Viet Nams Green City Master Plan. Accordingly, it helps Viet Nam to develop a set of green city indexes and a Green City Planning Decision Support System and recommends a legal framework for green city planning to the construction ministry. To become a green city, some standards need to be met, such as the presence of green space, green constructions, green transport and green industry, besides some other criteria, architect Le Thi Bich Thuan said on baoxaydung.com.vn. Some global cities have become green cities, such as Curitiba in Brazil, Swedens Stockholm, Freiburg in Germany and Singapore. VNS HCM CITY Vice chairman of the HCM City Peoples Committee Le Van Khoa said he hoped to strengthen co-operation with Finlands investors, particularly in technology during a meeting on Thursday with Lenita Toivakka, Finlands Minister for Foreign Trade and Development in HCM City. The city is investing heavily in road infrastructure and different kinds of public transport, Khoa said at a reception held for Minister Lenita Toivakka and a Finnish business delegation. Information technology, communications, education, energy, environment and waste-water treatment are all areas in which HCM City and Finland will cooperate. In HCM City, Finland has invested in six projects worth a total of US$2 million, mostly in the information and communications, science and technology and processing industry. The figure is moderate compared to the total of US$48 billion in foreign direct investment that has poured into the city, he said. Toivakka suggested that the citys leaders create favourable conditions for Finlands investors to take part in projects in traffic infrastructure, communications, science and technology. She pledged to support the expansion of co-operation between investors in HCM City and Finland. VNS "Any rule or custom pertaining to the display of the flag of the United States of America, set forth herein, may be altered, modifi... As the striking workers at Tata Motors Sanand plant garnered the support of 22 trade unions in the state, unions have threatened civil disobedience to restore rights of all industrial workers in Gujarat. Speaking at a press conference here today Ashim Roy, vice-president of the National Trade Union Initiative, said, The company has taken punitive action against 26 workers. Also the intention is to not let workers form a union at the plant. He said this was a violation of workers rights and claimed 22 trade unions, including the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) had extended support to their struggle. Roy said the unions would undertake a statewide movement to expose the victimisation of labour and farmers in Gujarat. Union leaders are planning to invite popular faces of dissent like JNU student Kanhaiya Kumar and Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel to extend support to workers at the Tata Motors plant. The Sangh Parivar-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) has not yet come out in support of the movement. The company respects the right of workmen to form a union. The 26 workmen who have been suspended on charges of serious misconduct have nothing to do with union formation. All workmen other than those suspended on charges of indiscipline should resume duty, a Tata Motors spokesperson said. The Ahmedabad district collector had tried to mediate between the workers and the management on Friday and asked the striking workers to resume work. The workers held a secret ballot today in which an overwhelming majority voted in favour of continuing the strike. Workers and trade union members will demonstrate in front of the collector's office on Monday and later at the Sanand industrial estate. Roy even threatened to shut down the company's showrooms in Gujarat. Plans are afoot to move the Gujarat High Court over the state government declaring the strike illegal. We are willing to join from tomorrow if they withdraw the suspension. We are open to a neutral enquiry, and will accept the outcome, said Hitesh Rabari, a striking worker. The workers are unhappy with their wages and the main objective behind forming the union is to negotiate better pay. Around 422 permanent workers at the Tata Motors Sanand plant went on a flash strike on February 22 and staged a sit-in at the plant from February 23, protesting against the suspension of 26 workers. Company sources claimed 50 workers had resumed work since then. The state labour department prohibited the strike on March 2, and the company set a deadline of March 11 for striking workers to join back, failing which they would face action. The plant makes the new Tiago hatchback, bookings for which opened recently. Workers claimed production of the car had slowed to 35-50 per day after touching a peak of 100 in January. The plant has a capacity to produce 250,000 cars a year and was earlier dedicated to the production of the Nano. Workers said that at present about 60-70 Nanos are being made at the site per day. Amrish Patel, secretary Gujarat Majdoor Sabha and also vice president of Trade Union Center of India who is an advisor to the Tata Marcopolo workers' union at Dharwad, claimed, "Apart from Sanand and Dharwad, protests are taking place at Tata Motor's Pantnagar plant as well with regards to unionisation." Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who spent nearly three hours at the inaugural ceremony on Friday of the controversial 'world culture festival' on the Yamuna floodplains, asked Indians to be proud of their culture. And, lauded spiritual guru Ravi Shankar for having introduced India to the world. The three-day event, organised under the auspices of the Art of Living Foundation that Ravi Shankar heads, has been criticised for having ignored environmental concerns, erecting massive structures on the riverbed for the multitudes who'd be coming. The PM didnt refer to the controversy in his speech. "India has the cultural heritage and richness the whole world is looking for. We can fulfill those needs... But, it can only happen, if we take pride in our heritage. If we keep cursing it, then why will the world look at us?" he told the gathering. The attendance was much below what the organizers had expected. Intermittent rain left the paths leading up to the event difficult to negotiate for those on foot and also led to motor vehicles getting stuck. The event also caused traffic snarls in several parts of Delhi. People returning home afterwards found themselves stuck in traffic for hours. The PM said Indian cultural traditions had much to offer to the world and this was the countrys soft power. Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin, Nepal's Deputy PM Kamal Thapa and the UAE cultural minister were some of the dignitaries present on the occasion. President Pranab Mukherjee has already pulled out of attending the valedictory session. Some other VIPS who'd earlier said they'd come would not be doing so. In his speech, Ravi Shankar took a dig at critics for describing the event as his "private party". He made no reference to the trouble the Art of Living faced with the National Green Tribunal. Obstacles, he said, come up when the intent is to do something noble; once these are overcome, the result is all the sweeter. State prosecutors in Brazil are seeking the arrest of former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on charges of money laundering and identity fraud for concealing ownership of a beachfront apartment, his foundation said on Thursday. The effort to arrest the former president raised the stakes dramatically in a crisis threatening to topple his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, and was likely to further polarize protests on Sunday calling for her impeachment. Lula's foundation called the motion to arrest the president "more proof of the partiality" of Sao Paulo state prosecutor Cassio Conserino. The motion requires the approval of a judge, which is highly unlikely, according to a presidential aide who asked not to be named given the sensitivity of the case. Conserino declined to comment on possible arrests in a news conference regarding the charges earlier in the day, and court officials did not comment on the news. Newspaper O Globo quoted court documents in which prosecutors argued that Lula should be jailed preventatively because he could "summon his violent network of supporters to keep the criminal process from proceeding." Last week federal police brought Lula in for questioning in a separate investigation, setting off isolated skirmishes in the streets between supporters and critics of the former president as the graft probe inflamed political tensions. Earlier on Thursday, Conserino told reporters that two dozen witnesses said Lula was the owner of a luxury condo in the city of GuarujA, using their testimony as proof that he profited from real estate projects financed by a state bankers' cooperative. Lula has disavowed ownership of the apartment and denied any wrongdoing. His attorney has asked the Supreme Court to decide if the case is under the jurisdiction of state prosecutors or the separate federal probe tackling graft at state-run oil company Petrobras. That two-year-old federal investigation has already rocked Brazil's political and business establishment with high-profile arrests and convictions, while deepening the worst recession in decades in Latin America's biggest economy. The investigations now threaten to tarnish the legacy of Brazil's most powerful politician, whose humble roots and anti-poverty programs made him a folk hero, by putting a spotlight on how members of his left-leaning Workers' Party consolidated wealth and power since he rose to the presidency 13 years ago. The scandal has also hurt political support for Rousseff, who is struggling to pass fiscal reforms in Congress and fight impeachment for allegedly breaking budgetary rules. The next setback may come on Saturday, when Rousseff's biggest ally in Congress, the fractious center-right Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, is expected to distance itself from her increasingly unpopular government. The head of the governing Workers' Party, Rui Falcao, told journalists in Brasilia that there were no grounds to arrest Lula and he was confident a judge would not grant a warrant. Asked if the former president could join the current government as a minister, as some members of Rousseff's cabinet have suggested, Falcao said the decision was up to Lula. If appointed, Lula could only be tried in the Supreme Court, placing him out of the reach of the state and federal probes. Lula's lawyer, Cristiano Zanin Martins, compared the effort to arrest him to measures taken by Brazil's military government decades ago to suppress political expression with imprisonment. He dismissed the idea that the former president had ever owned the apartment. "The owner of a property is the person listed in the registry. It doesn't matter who some people think it belongs to," Martins said in a telephone interview. Martins reiterated the former president's account that his family had invested in the real estate project, visited the unfinished apartment and then asked for their money back rather than receiving property. Zelenskys diplomacy masterclass outpacing dour, grey Putin in battle for hearts and minds When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year, there was no room for jokes or play acting, and Zelensky needed to step up. He did. Megyn Kelly fires up at Meghan Markle over her deceptive nature Sky News Australia contributor Megyn Kelly has slammed Meghan Markle over her "abject dishonesty" after the Duchess of Sussex took a swipe at Deal or No Deal in her latest podcast episode which featured Paris Hilton. Boris Johnsons dad tight-lipped on sons potential return Speculation has begun on who could replace Liz Truss in the wake of her resignation, with her predecessor Boris Johnson expected to stand for the Conservative leadership again. WATERLOO -- Police blocked off part of a Waterloo neighborhood for several hours Friday afternoon and evening after a resident received a suspicious package that a bomb disposal unit determined was a travel bag. "Better safe than sorry," Waterloo safety services director Dan Trelka said after officers were on the scene for about four hours. Officers received a call about the package at 961 Lisa Drive at about 3 p.m. Trelka said officers were dispatched to the home after a resident there reported receiving a package following a phone threat days earlier. Police asked some neighbors to leave their residences while authorities checked out the matter. The package was delivered to Dale Kohli's home at 961 Lisa Friday, a few days after Kohli had a phone conversation with an acquaintance whom he said was harassing a friend. The caller said he would send him something by mail that would send Kohli "into orbit." Kohli said he did not order anything. There was no return address and the package bore a West Virginia postmark. "He called me on the phone and told me he would send me a package in three or four days," Kohli said. "It's been three or four days and I got this package." Kohli contacted police. Police closed Lisa Drive and secured the area until the package could be checked out. After initial investigation, a bomb disposal unit arrived after 6 p.m. Unit members X-rayed the package and after further checks determined the package not to be a threat. Kohli described the package as about 14 inches by 16 inches by 4 inches. Through traffic on Olympic Drive, a nearby busy arterial, was allowed to pass during the investigation. OMAHA, Neb. (AP) A Hollywood actor and an Internet entrepreneur have donated money to Iowa and Nebraska classrooms in an education philanthropy websites effort to fulfill wish lists of teachers across the country. Actor Ashton Kutcher and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams are among nearly 60 athletes, business leaders, celebrities and philanthropists who pledged $14 million to fund nearly 12,000 projects across the nation this week. Teachers posted their requests on DonorsChoose.org, where they asked for things such as books, tablets, art supplies and field trips. Kutcher, a Cedar Rapids native, funded 131 projects in his home state and posted a video crediting his teachers for his success. Williams, a native of Clarks, Neb., and his wife, Sara, funded 86 projects in his home state. Fifty projects were at Omaha schools. Among area projects funded: A teacher at Kittrell Elementary received funding to help buy two weighted blankets and two extra sets of weights to help with sensory needs. One teacher at Little Husky Learning Center in Oelwein received funding to help buy weighted lap pads and calming technological devices to help young childred focus. Another received funding for letters and materials. Another receiving funding for ways to practice language skills. One teacher at Parkside Elementary in Oelwein received funding to help buy magnetics letters, stamps and a CVC Word Work Center to help children practice spelling words. Another Parkside teacher received funding to help with hands-on writing materials. A teacher at Oelwein Middle School received funding for a project on water. WIOA seeks public input DES MOINES Iowa Workforce Development, Iowa Department of Education, Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation and Iowa Department for the Blind announced Friday that regional Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act local plans are posted on the Regional Development Board websites. Iowa has 15 WIOA Regions that are responsible for the workforce development systems for their respective counties. The 30-day comment period on the local plans ends April 10. To review each regional plan, go to iowawdb.gov. Comments are requested for content, language and overall implementation of the local plan. Each region has identified a contact person to receive comments. IWD is the lead state agency responsible for implementing WIOA. This is the first federally enacted legislative reform of the workforce development system in 15 years, redesigning how services for job seekers, workers, and employers are carried out. WIOA was signed into law in July 2014. In addition to IWD, staff from the Iowa Department of Education, Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Iowa Department on Aging, Iowa Department for the Blind, Iowa Department of Human Services, Iowa Economic Development Authority and Iowa Department of Corrections are partners in WIOA implementation. Housing project open house set WATERLOO The Rose of Waterloo will host an open house 1 to 4 p.m. March 21 at its facility at 421 Oak Ave. The housing project will celebrate its progress since a devastating 2007 fire. The Rose of Waterloo is one of six similar Rose Assisted Living Facilities in Iowa, each built with federal tax credits provided by the Iowa Finance Authority. Each Rose community offers one and two bedroom apartments with full kitchen, bedroom and dressing area, bathroom, large storage room and free wireless Internet. Building amenities include a two-story atrium dining area, community room for family and community celebrations, a theater/chapel with seating for fifty, craft and activity areas, computer room, library, beauty/barber shop, assisted bathing room and laundry areas. One-bedroom apartments rent from $490 to $600 per month and two-bedroom apartments rent from $570 to $670 per month, all utilities included. Apartments are currently available to rent. For more informatin, contact Gladys Rainey, 421 Oak Ave., Waterloo, 232-6061, ext. 10 or roseofwaterloo@qwestoffice.net, or go to www.evergreenredc.com. This is a serious post, about a serious issue. Its a big one too, I didnt want to leave anything out. Sorry if you came to me for short a... by John Stanton In 2007 I wrote and presented a conceptual paper to an international studies group in Portugal. The subject matter was, generally, the use of Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience (ECN) to manage humanity. That paper would eventually finds its way, remarkably, into Rebecca Costas seminal The Watchmans Rattle. I said back in 2007 that Americas ongoing obsession with national security and the enormous funding necessary to soothe a national psyche of fear and war was a key driver for enhancing security thereby eliminating the uncertainty of daily living. I suggested that ECN could generate predictive and diagnostic biotechnologies to reduce tension. Such a development could eliminate much uncertainty and concomitant drama in human affairs by providing leaders with assets to manage the complexities in brain-behavior relationships. To get there though, reliable data on human beings, as they function as interconnected consumers, warfighters, enemies, refugees, diplomats, criminals, and citizens of their respective nations would need to be collected and assessed. I went on to say that a comprehensive knowledge base of planetary ecosystems and how humans interface with those ecosystems would have to be constructed and meshed with the findings of brain-behavior functions. The dissection of the individual and global organism may lead to unprecedented forecasting capability with the ultimate outcome the creation of biomachine systems that suggest procedures and diagnostics with which to anticipate and/or minimize a wide range of human problems. Biomachine tools might become available that could suggest courses of action such as military intervention, diplomacy, containment, stability and consequence management operations, economic aid, covert operations, etc. I also briefly mentioned that one of the dangers in such a pursuit would likely be the development of neuroweaponry. In just under ten years, the topics alluded to in my 2007 paper have taken the form of four converging and accelerating movements that seem likely to usher in drastic change in the human condition: The digitization of human behavior; cracking open the brain through neuroscience; the engineering and manipulation of human and non-human genomes; and the proliferation of the Internet of Things, which is code for the sensorization of the human/non-human, home, work, school, automobile, street, global commons, etc. Is it any surprise that the Anthropocene is upon us? What Happens Next? Shoshana Zuboff, in the article, The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism, thinks that humanity will become mentally displaced, perhaps disembodied, as behavior becomes totally predictable and free will vanishes. The significance of behavioral surplus was quickly camouflaged, both at Google and eventually throughout the Internet industry, with labels like digital exhaust, digital breadcrumbs,Th ese euphemisms for behavioral surplus operate as ideological filters, in exactly the same way that the earliest maps of the North American continent labeled whole regions with terms like heathens, infidels, idolaters, primitives, vassals, or rebels. On the strength of those labels, native peoples, their places and claims, were erased from the invaders moral and legal equations, legitimating their acts of taking and breaking in the name of Church and Monarchy. We are the native peoples now whose tacit claims to self-determinati on have vanished from the maps of our own behavior. They are erased in an astonishing and audacious act of dispossession by surveillance that claims its right to ignore every boundary in its thirst for knowledge of and influence over the most detailed nuances of our behavior. For those who wondered about the logical completion of the global processes of commodification, the answer is that they complete themselves in the dispossession of our intimate quotidian reality, now reborn as behavior to be monitored and modified, bought and sold. Radar Love Social Radar has been a goal of the government and business for some time. Its applications are legion: Predictive behavioral algorithms to ensure consumers are directed to the right product to ensure steady profits; underlying predictive mathematical models that allow the military commander a quantitative, geospatial view of open or urban terrain with humans moving predictably like aircraft on an air traffic controllers screen; and the creation of a predictive reality in which the masses believe they are free, but are, unknown to them, being behaviorally shaped for the larger system. These notions can be found in military doctrine and a host of academic and marketing organizations. Its all there out in the open if anyone cares to look. Consider The MITRE Corporations development of Social Radar. In Social Radar for Smart Power, Mark Maybury writes: Conventional radar requires signatures for different kinds of objects and events: it needs to be tuned to different environmental conditions to provide accurate and reliable information. Analogously, a social radar needs signatures, calibration, and correlation to sense, if not forecast, a broad spectrum of phenomena (e.g., political, economic, social, environmental, health) and potentially forecast changing trends in population perceptions and behaviors. For example, radar or sonar enable some degree of forecasting by tracking spatial and temporal patterns (e.g. they track and display how military objects or weather phenomena move in what clusters, in which direction(s) and at what speed.) A user can thus project where and when objects will be in the future. Similarly, a social radar should enable us to forecast who will cluster with whom in a network, where, and when in what kinds of relationshipsPu blic Opinion Polling by Proxy (POP/P) [is] an exploration of the ability of social media (e.g., Twitter) to serve as a proxy for traditional opinion polling methods to overcome their latency, expense, and invasiveness. If We Kick the Ant Hill, Where will the Ants Go? The US national security communitys dream is to have a Social Radarlike the one described above by Mayburythat would allow military commanders to lord over other countries. The Pentagons Sociocultural Behavior Research and Engineering in a Department of Defense Context contains this statement: Mastery would mean that U.S. forces would have the data on indigenous populations and the training they need to move easily in those populations; could see the parameters of culture and society and integrate those with conventional mapping of the physical terrain; could detect often complex and dynamic networks, where adversaries and civilian populations are intermingled; and would possess non-kinetic tools as well as the ability to anticipate both the near-term and long-term impacts of applying those tools. Its easy to pick on the Pentagon on these matters, of course. But the insidious reality is that for profit, commercial enterprises with global reachand the many lobbyists and non-profits who work on their behalf to distort regulatory regimes designed to oversee their activitiesmust modify human behavior in order to control/corner global markets, turn a profit and survive. These are the new colonialists who now brandish the US military as a tool for their own ends. If Zuboff is correct, then Googleand corporations colluding with them or like themare engaging in a type of intellectual property theft from unwitting customers. The thoughts, feelings, the sense of individual uniqueness of a human being (or his/her genetic structure) ultimately ends up getting copyrighted, trademarked or patented by corporations. It is the Internet of Sensors, Neuroscience, Genetic Engineering and the Digitization of Earth in the techno-dictatori al hands of corporate boardrooms and financiers that may well prove to be apocalyptic for all life on Earth. Unfortunately the leadership of the dangerously privatized US military has become an extension of this techno-corporate collective and the governing civilians the collective owns. Indeed, so much so that US military leadership, while on active duty, emulates its mentors in the corporate world because (a.) rampant internal privatization has distorted the US military; and (b.) the private sector is where US military leaders long to be when its retirement time. Its all about networking for the big payday in the private sector, or developing networking diagrams to see who the bad guys affiliate with in some remote corner of the African continent. So it is no surprise that the worldview that governs the U.S militarys approachis one where populations are de-coded as networks. To see like the twenty-first century US military is to see a world of networks. This world of networks is a secular cosmological vision derivative from the human-machine assemblages where US military personnel and institutions are imbricated. These human-machine assemblages have been violently extendedthrough new technologies like iris-scan biometrics devices and data-base managementmany new twenty-first century technologies, like big data mining and computational social network analysis, are rooted in colonial practices. (The Afterlives of Counterinsurgenc y: Postcolonialism, Military Social Science, and Afghanistan 2006-2012 by Oliver Christian Belcher) John Stanton can be reached at captainkong22@gm ail.com If youre looking to try out an online casino, there are several things that will help you make a decision. Heres what you should look for when choosing an online casino Are they regulated? A lot of the larger ones have licenses issued by the authorities in their respective regions, so its worth checking this first. 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Misal tamnn en iyi oyuncusu sakat ya da kart cezals ise takmn performansnda dusus yasanacaktr. Buna ek olarak takmn deplasman performans ile evinde ki performans ayr olacaktr. Burada da takmn musabakay nerede yaptgna bakmak gerekir. Bu ayrntlar da iyice analiz ettikten sonra bahsinizi yapp kazanmann keyfini yasayabilirsiniz. Canl Bahis Siteleri Son derece yuksek getiriye sahip bahis sektoru uzun zamandr faaliyet gostermektedir. Cok ciddi rakamlarn soz konusu oldugu bu sektor zamanla sanal ortamlara donusmustur. Elbette guvenli ve bir o kadar da avantajl olan bu siteler cok yonlu frsatlar sunmaktadrlar. Canl iddaa siteleri gerek yeni uyelere gerekse de hali hazrdaki uyelerine bolca bonus frsatlar vermektedir. Yatracagnz tutara gore belirlenen bonuslar site icerisinde rahat hareket etmenizi de saglayacaktr. Canl bahis sitelerini kullanmadan once mutlaka guvenli olup olmadgna goz atmalsnz. Zira baz kullanclar guvenli olmayan sitelerden yaptklar islemlerden dolay magdur olmaktadrlar. Nitekim guvenli ve sorunsuz hizmet sunan yurt ds site tercih etmek en dogru secenektir. Sektorde uzun yllar faaliyet gosteren siteleri tercih edebilirsiniz. Bu alanda yer alan yabanc siteler musteri memnuniyetine onem vermektedir. Oncelik site kullanclarn sorunsuz sekilde bahislerini yapabilir olmasn saglamaktr. Bahis sitelerinde amac hem daha fazla kullancya hizmet vermek hem de sektorde emin admlarla ilerlemek onceliklidir. Dogru site tercihi ile sizde canl bahislerinizi sorun yasamadan gerceklestirebilirsiniz. Sizler icin hazrlams oldugumuz canl bahis siteleri listesi su sekildedir; Mobilbahis Tempobet Bets10 Bahigo 1xbahis Betboo Youwin Superbahis Sralams oldugumuz bu siteler sektorde basarl islere imza atms sitelerdedir. Canl bahis konusunda beklentileri karslayacak olan bu siteler sizlere kolaylk sunmaktadrlar. Bol bonuslu secenekle de sizlere farkl bahis yonlerini sunacaklardr. Sistemsel etki icerisinde her zaman etkin sonuc alabilmek icin surekli olarak faaliyet icerisindedirler. Canl Bahis Taktikleri Bahis sektorunun en fazla dikkat edilmesi gereken hususu dogru taktik ve dogru tahmindir. Elbette dogru tahmini yapabilmek icin analizi cok iyi yapmak gerekir. Canl bahis taktikleri arasnda ilk sra analiz gelmektedir. Analiz yapamadgnz zaman basarl tahminlerde bulunmanz pek de mumkun degildir. Cunku bahiste onemli olan konu musabakann analizini cok iyi yaplmas gerektigidir. Canl bahisin ozelliklerini iyi bilmek ve nasl bir hamle yapacagnz bilmek gerekir. Ozellikle riskli maclarda yaplacak degerlendirmeler cok daha onemlidir. Canl bahis yapacaklarn takip edecegi degerler takmlarn durumlar ile alakal olmaldr. Performans uzerine kurulu bahis sisteminde takm degerlendirmesine iyi bakmak gerekir. Iki takmn son 5 macta nasl bir sonuc ortaya koyduguna bakarak hareket etmek onemlidir. Ayrca hangi takm evinde daha iyi performans sergiliyor diye de ayrca bakmak gerekir. Analizlerle alakal puan durumlarna da goz atmak cok onemlidir. Puan degerlendirmesinde oncelikle takmlarn ihtiyaclar ile dogru orantl hareket etmek gerekir. Cunku olusturulan performans takmn da durumunu ortaya koymaktadr. Nitekim istenilen sonucu elde edebilmek icin tum ayrntlar bilmek gerekir. Takm ici duzenden tutunda da takmn son durumuna kadar her ayrnt onemlidir. Iki takmn birbirleri arasnda ki sonuclar da incelemek gerekir. Burada dikkat edilecek detaylarn basnda maclarda kac gol oldugu ve gollerin hangi dakikalarda atldgdr. Cekismeli gecen musabakalarda bazen goller ilk yarda daha fazla olurken baz maclarda da ikinci yarda daha cok gol olmustur. Iki takm arasnda ki maclarda gollerin cogunlugu ilk yarda geliyorsa buna gore bahis yapabilirsiniz. Canl Bahis Siteleri Bonuslar ve Kampanyalar Bahis yapanlar veya yapmay dusununler sitelerin sunmus olduklar frsatlar merak etmektedirler. Cunku siteler daha fazla kullancya erismek icin her donem kampanyalar duzenleyerek kullanc odakl hamleler yapmaktadrlar. Canl bahis bonuslar ve kampanyalar oldukca populer olup, siteler bu konuda adeta birbirleri ile yarsmaktadrlar. Birbirinden farkl ozelliklere sahip olan kampanyalar size frsatlar sunmaktadr. Daha cok kazanma ihtimalinizi arttran bu bonuslar daha cesur olmanza da dogrudan etki edecektir. Nitekim bonuslar sitelerin cekiciligini ve avantajlarn arttrmaktadr. En cok kazandran canl bahis siteleri bedava bonuslar ve kampanyalar icin http://www.milano2018.com/canli-bahis-siteleri-2022/ linkinden yardm alabilirsiniz. Hos geldin bonusu ile baslayan ve sonrasnda para yatrdkca bonus veren cok sayda site bulunmaktadr. Canl bahis bonusu veren siteler yeni uyelere sunduklar frsatlar farkl kampanyalarla mevcut uyelerine de sunmaktadrlar. Hali hazrda siteyi kullananlarn da bonus frsatlarndan yararlanmalar icin donemsel kampanyalar olusturmaktadrlar. Boylece baska sitelere gidisler olmayacag gibi site de daha keyifli zaman gecirmek mumkun klnmaktadr. Bu tur eklentiler yapan sitelerde musteri memnuniyeti daha fazladr. Bahis siteleri ozellik ve uygulama bakmndan farkllklar bunyelerinde bulundurmaktadrlar. Verilen bonuslarn olusturulmas ve kullanclar aktarlmasnda yatrlan para miktarlar belirleyici olmaktadr. 1.000 TL yatran bir kullanc yuzde 20 bonus frsat olan bir kampanyadan 200 TL bonus kazanabilmektedir. Yatracag tutar 10.000 TL oldugunda bu bonustutar 2.000 TL olabilmektedir. Gerceklesen ve uygulanan esaslar tamamen donemsel olarak yaplan kampanyalarla alakaldr. Iyi Canl bahis siteleri bonuslar ve kampanyalar icin sitelerin vermis oldugu oranlar takip edebilirsiniz. Canl Bahis Siteleri Para Yatrma Online Canl bahis yapacaklarn merak ettigi konulardan bir digeri de para yatrma islemleridir. Oldukca onemli olan bu konuda hata yapmamak cok onemlidir. Canl bahis sitelerine para yatrma islemi sanlann aksine son derece basittir. Oldukca basit ve uygulama esas dogru etki olusturan bu yapda sizde islemi rahatca tamamlayabilirsiniz. Para yatrma konusunda su yolu izleyebilirsiniz. Guvendiginiz ve herhangi bir sekilde aklnzda soru isareti kalmayan bahis sitesine uye olmanz gerekmektedir. Uyelik islemini sorunsuz sekilde tamamladktan sonra para yatrma islemine gecebilirsiniz. Kullanacagnz siteye uye olduktan sonra karsnza kullanc ad ve sifresini gireceginiz yer gelecektir. Buraya giris yaptktan sonra site icerisine islemlere devam edebilirsiniz. Sitede yer alan para yatrma sekmesine tklayp sonrasnda karsnza gelen sayfay inceleyebilirsiniz. Para yatrma bolumunde yer alan ksma ne kadar para yatracagnz yazp devam tusuna basmalsnz. Yatrmak istediginiz tutar girip sonrasnda da devam tusuna bastktan sonra karsnza kart bilgilerinizi gireceginiz sayfa gelecektir. Kredi kart kullanarak para gondermek isteyenlerin tercih ettigi bu sayfa tum bilgiler girilip islem onaylanmaldr. Canl bahis sitelerine para yatrma islemini gerceklestirmek icin hesaba havale secenegini de kullanabilirsiniz. Site icerisinde musteri hizmetleri ile iletisime gecerek banka hesap numaralarn ogrenebilirsiniz. Belirtilen IBAN numarasna istediginiz tutar havale edebilirsiniz. Havale ederken acklama ksmna yazlacak bilgilere dikkat etmelisiniz. Kredi kart veya banka havalesi ile gerceklesen para yatrma islemi sonucunda site hesabnzdan bakiyenize bakabilirsiniz. Bakiyenize gore dilediginiz sekilde bahislerinizi gerceklestirebilirsiniz. Canl Bahis Siteleri Para Cekme Canl bahiste dogru hamleler ve dogru tahminler sonucunda kazandgnz bedeli geri almak isteyebilirsiniz. Kazanclarnz istediginiz banka hesabnza cekebilmek icin uymanz gereken kurallar soz konusudur. Oncelikle bahis sitelerinden para cekebilmeniz icin uye olurken dogru bilgi paylasmnda bulunmanz gerektigidir. Cunku canl bahis sitelerinden para cekme islemi icin kullanc hesab ile talep edilen banka hesap bilgilerinin ortusmesi gerekir. Yani uye olurken verilen bilgi ile banka hesab kime ait ise o bilgiler ayn olmaldr. Bu uygulama sitenin hem kullancsn hem de kendisini guvene alma politikasdr. Ayrca frsatclarn onune gecerek yeni bir uye olusumunun da onune gecmek amac gutmektedir. Uye olan kisi farkl para cekilme talebi verilen hesap farkl oldugunda para cekme islemi gerceklesmeyecektir. Bahisleriniz sonucunda kazanc elde edebilir ve bu kazancnz da hakknz olarak almak isteyebilirsiniz. Burada son derece basit uygulama soz konusu olurken siteler aras farkl gorunumler soz konusu olabilir. Fakat yine de tum sitelerde uyenin site icerisinde para cekme bolumune girmesi yeterlidir. Burada cekilecek olan tutarn belirlenmesi ve hesap numarasnn girilmesi ile birlikte islem onay gerekecektir. Para cekme taleplerinde sizden gerekli bilgiler istenmekte ve havale islemi istenilen bilgiler esliginde yurutulmektedir. Dogru bilgi paylasmak sorunsuz para cekebilmeniz en onemli kuraldr. Istenilen bilgiler girildikten sonra site sorumlular gerekli kontrolleri yapp herhangi bir sorun yoksa ksa surede hesabnza gerekli paray aktaracaklardr. Canl Bahis Sitelerinden Para Cekmek Icin Istenen Belgeler Bahis sitelerine uye olduktan sonra baz kullanclar para cekme taleplerinin karslanmadg konusunda sikayetlerde bulunmuslardr. Bu sikayetlersektorde uzun zamandr bulunan guvenilir bahis siteleri de yer almaktadr. Fakat sikayetlerin dayanaklarna bakldgnda ise islerin tamamen farkl oldugu gorulmektedir. Yasanan bu durum kullanclarn hatal bilgi girmesi ve uyelik bilgileri ile banka bilgilerinin uyusmamas ile dogru orantldr. Birde canl bahis para cekmek icin istenen belgeler eksik ya da hatal olarak sunulmus olabilir. Ortaya ckan karsklar neticesinde para cekme talebinde bulunan kisi istedigini alamadg icin sikayetci olmaktadr. Oysa ki istenilen bilgiler dogru ve istenilen evraklar eksiksiz sunulsa para cekme islemi sorunsuz olacak. Sitelerin para cekme konusunda dikkatli hareket etmesi hilelerin ve illegal faaliyetlerin onune gecmek adnadr. Cunku baz kullanclar farkl bilgiler vererek ikinci hesap acabilmektedirler. Bazen de bilincsizce hatal bilgi girilebilmektedir. Hatal islemlerin cozumu konusunda islem yaptgnz sitenin musteri temsilcileri ile gorusebilirsiniz. Talepleriniz dogrultusunda para cekme islemlerinde ki sorunlar giderilecektir. Canl bahis para cekmek icin istenen belgeler listesi su sekildedir; Kullanc bilgileri ile banka bilgilerini karslastrmak icin kimlik fotokopisi Banka hesap bilgileri Ikametgah ve kisiye ait herhangi bir fatura. Kacak Iddaa Turkiyede dogrudan bahis yapmak icin resmi kanallar kullanlabilmektedir. Fakat tercih edilen ve oran olarak cok daha fazla frsatlar sunan kacar iddaasiteleri bulunmaktadr. Bu siteler kanunlara aykr sekilde yaplmakta olup, yasal bir dayanag yoktur. Elbette bu sitelerin kurulus merkezi Turkiye olmayp, ds ulkelerdedir ve faaliyetler belirlenen siteler uzerinden yaplmaktadr. Kacak Iddaa oldukca riskli olup, cok dikkatli olunmas gerekir. Kacak Bahis Kanunlar cercevesinde istediginiz gibi bahis yapamayabilirsiniz. Bahis yapabilmek icin ya kanuni olarak sorun olmayan ulke dsnda ki kumarhanelere gitmeniz veya kacak bahis sitelerinden islem yapabilirsiniz. Zira bu durum tehlikeli olsa da cok sayda site guvenli sekilde bu alanda hizmet vermektedir. Kacak bahiste oldukca fazla secenek bulunurken yuksek oranda kazanc sunuyor olmas da ragbeti arttryor. Illegal Bahis Bahisin bircok alanda yasak oldugu Turkiyede bu alanda cok sayda yabanc merkezli siteler hizmet vermektedir. Illegal bahis sektorunde faaliyet gosteren siteler guvenli hizmet anlays ile kullanclarna frsatlar sunmaktadr. Yurt ds merkezli bu siteler sorunsuz sekilde hizmetlerini surdururken bulunduklar ulkelerde kanunlara uygun sekildedir. Elbette faaliyet noktasnda bulunduklar ulkelerde sorun teskil etmese de Turkiyede faaliyet gostermeleri kanunin yasaklanmstr. Yasads Bahis Gerek olusturulan etkenler gerekse de ortaya konulan riskler yasads bahis de oldukca tehlikelidir. Kanunlarn mudahil olduklar bu alanlar da hem kullanclar hem de populer bahis yaptranlar tum riskleri goze almaktadrlar. Fakat yasaklardan uzak sekilde guvenli hizmet sunan siteler de bulunmaktadr. Takipler neticesinde kapatlan sitelerin muhakkak alternatifleri kurularak yollarna devam etmektedirler. Canl Iddaa Siteleri Nelerdir? Dunya genelinde kabul gormus cok sayda guvenli hizmet veren populer bahis siteleri bulunmaktadr. Elbette bu siteler dunyann bircok ulkesinde faaliyet gosterse de Turkiyede yasaktr. Sektorde yer alan cok sayda legal iddaa siteleri bulunmaktadr. Herhangi bir kanunsuzlugun olmadg bu sitelerden hzl ve guvenli islem yaplabilmektedir. Tabi bu sitelerde uygulanan oranlar yasal olmayan sitelere gore daha dusuktur. Illegal sitelerin tercih edilme sebeplerinin en onemli etkeni de olusturulan oranlardr. Peki, Iddaa siteleri nelerdir? Faaliyetleri ve uygulama esaslar nelerdir? Turkiyede faaliyet gosteren yasal iddaa siteleri listesi su sekildedir; Iddaa Bilyoner Tuttur Birebin Oley Nesine Misli Iddaa 2004 ylnda hizmet vermeye baslayan Iddaa Spor toto tarafndan kurulmus olup, ilk etapta bayilik seklinde calsmaya baslamstr. Elbette zamanla gelisen teknolojiye ayak uydurarak internet uzerinde de populer bahis severlerin hizmetine sunulmustur. Kuruldugu donemde devletin resmi kurumu olarak faaliyet gosterirken gelinen yeni donemde ozellestirilmistir. Bilyoner Turkiyede faaliyetine 2006 ylnda baslayan Bilyoner ilk ozel yasal bahis sitesi olma ozelligine sahiptir. Guvenilir bahis siteleri Turkiyede bunlardr. Ksa surede populer olan site halen faaliyetlerini sorunsuz sekilde surdurmektedir. Tuttur Ksa surede adndan bahsettirmeyi basaran Tuttur 2009 ylnda faaliyetlere baslamstr. Guvenilir bahis siteleri arasnda yerini almstr. Gunumuze dek bircok alanda populer bahis yapanlara frsatlar sunarken avantajlar ile de begeni toplamstr. Birebin Kullanc odakl calsmalar surdurse de 2011 ylnda sektore giren Birebindiger sitelere gore daha az ragbet gormektedir. Bahis oynamak ise bu sitede oldukca kolaydr. Elbette farkl yaklasmlara sahip olmasndan dolay ilerleyen sureclerde adndan sklkla bahsettirecek gibi gorunuyor. Oley 2009 ylnda Dogus yayn gruplarnn istiraki olarak kurulmus olup yasal olarak herhangi bir sorunu olmayan sitelerdendir. Bahis siteleri arasnda hzl cks yapms bir sitedir. Oley yapms oldugu yenilikler ile kullanclarn da dikkatini ksa surede cekmeyi basarmstr. Nesine Birbirini takip eden surecte Nesine de yine 2006 ylnda hizmet vermeye baslamstr. Yasal bahis siteleri arasnda yerini almay basaran firma ksa surede sevilen ve ragbet goren bir site olmustur. Misli 2009 ylnda sektore cok hzl giris yapan Misli cok sayda reklam filmi ile on plana ckmay basarmstr. Internet uzerinden hem yasal hem de sorunsuz hizmet veren bahis sitelerinden bir tanesi olmustur. Canl Bahis Siteleri Kayt ve Uyelik Islemleri Her zaman populerligini koruyan ve surekli gelisim gosteren canl bahis gun gectikce daha da gucleniyor. Bahis oynamak icin ise sitelere uye olunmas gerekir. Yuksek getirisi ve begeni toplayan faaliyetleri ile cok sayda site bu alanda faaliyet gostermektedir. Elbette sorunsuz sekilde uye olmanz ve faaliyetler gostermeniz de oldukca kolaydr. Canl bahis siteleri kayt ve uyelik islemleri dakikalar icerisinde gerceklestirilecek yapya sahiptir. Uye olacagnz siteyi belirledikten sonra siteye girmeniz gerekmektedir. Girdiginiz sitenin ana sayfasnda uye ol ya da kayt ol bolumu bulunacaktr. Siteler arasnda degiskenlik gosteren bu alanda temel unsurlar bulunmaktadr. Elbette farkllklar olsa da temelinde benzer bilgiler uye olmak isteyen kisilerden talep edilmektedir. Uye ol bolumune tkladktan sonra karsnza uyelik bilgi formu ckacaktr. Bu formda sizin kim oldugunuzu ogrenmek ve sitenin guvenligini saglamak adna islemler yaplmaktadr. Uyelik formunda yer alan ad soyad bolumunu eksiksiz ve dogru sekilde doldurmalsnz. Sizden bu formda istenen bilgilerin tamamn girmeniz istenecektir. Istenen bilgiler mutlaka dogru ve eksiksiz sekilde olmaldr. Eksik veya hatal bilgi uyelik islemlerinde sorun teskil edebilir. Yine de yanls bilgi girisine ragmen uyelik islemleri tamamlanabilir. Fakat boyle bir yol izleyenler sonrasnda buyuk skntlarla karslasabilirler. Bu skntlarn basnda da para cekme islemlerinde yasanan sorunlardr. Uyelik islemleri dikkatli ve ozenle doldurulmas gereken yapdadr. Canl bahis siteleri kayt ve uyelik islemleri gerceklestirilirken verilen bilgiler site yonetimi tarafndan muhafaza edilmektedir. Herhangi bir sekilde 3. Sahslarla paylaslmas gibi bir durum soz konusu degildir. Bu faaliyetleri surduren sitelerin guven unsurlar arasnda bu nokta onceliklidir. Bahis sitelerine uye olurken hatal bilgi paylasmnda bulunmak size faydadan cok zarar verecektir. Diyelim ki bilgileri hatal girdiniz ve uyelik onayland. Uyelik tamamlandktan sonra siteye para yatrdnz ve kazanc elde ettiniz. Kazancnz sonrasnda hesabnza almak istediginizde karsnza banka bilgileri bolumu gelecektir. Para cekme talebi gerceklestikten sonra site uyelik bilgileri ile banka hesap bilgileri ortusmez ise paranz alamazsnz. Boyle bir durumla karslasmamak adna bu hususa ayrca dikkat etmelisiniz. Mar 11, 2016 | By Benedict Australian artist Erica Gray, winner of the 2015 3Doodler Fashion Award, has picked up her 3D printing pen again to create Forms Organic, a wearable sculpture inspired by organic figures and animalistic imagery. We first became acquainted with the 3Doodled creations of Erica Gray back in November. At that time, Gray, a versatile and talented artist based in Queensland, Australia, had recently finished working on two incredible pieces for the World of WearableArt Show in New Zealand, both of which required the use of 3Doodlers world famous 3D printing pen. Infinity, a black PVC-coated lycra piece with 3Doodled ABS detailing, was complemented by Crystal Matrix, a stunning white structure made from five intersecting 3Doodled ABS sections. After wowing audiences at the New Zealand exhibition, Crystal Matrix would go on to scoop 3Doodlers Fashion Award at the inaugural 3Doodler Awards. Participation in the World of WearableArt Show motivated Gray to continue sketching with the 3D printing pen, and the tail-end of 2015 saw the artist getting wild with a nature-themed project called Forms Organic. An expression of animalistic imagery, the now-complete wearable sculpture possesses a skeletal structure, polymer teeth, nylon tail, and claws, with the main body of the piece 3Doodled around, through, or within those elements. Taking a few weeks to complete, Forms Organic evolved naturally from Grays initial sketches, with that partially freeform approach reflected in the organic fluidity of the 3D printed artwork itself: My sculpted works are often themed on organic forms and animalistic imagery, the artist told 3Doodler, and this piece captures those fluid forms as well as some more rigid skeletal sections. Although Grays 3Doodled wearable artworks represent expressions of passionate creativity, a lot of practical planning and focus is required to get them finished. For Forms Organic, the artist had a strict deadline to work towards, having booked her model for a specific time perioda pressure which helped the 3Doodling designer to keep her focus. Gray also had to check her creative impulses at times to ensure that the piece could actually be worn by a human model. It took a little longer getting the intricacies of the fit right for a moving subject, she explained. Grays 3Doodling process involved both stencils and freehand drawing. For some of the joints, the artist used roughly sketched stencils. Layers and layers of ABS filament could then be built upon these foundation layers in order to emphasize the underlying shapes. Although Grays commitment to bespoke pieces gives her a natural inclination toward freehand creationsuch as the 3Doodler affordsshe also plans to use a desktop 3D printer for some of her upcoming works. A growing range of 3Doodler filaments could also see the artist experimenting with a wider color palette than has heretofore been seen on her work. Gray admits that Forms Organic was designed with a particular show in mind, but plans to keep its identity under wraps until an official announcement can be made. We can't wait to see more of her 3Doodled work. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Mar 11, 2016 | By Kira 3D printing has taken flightor at least, given several beautiful birds the chance to live and soar once again. First, there was Grecia, the Costa Rican toucan fitted with a 3D printed bill, next, Gigi, a macaw in Brazil who received the worlds first titanium 3D printed beak, and who could forget Ben, the one-legged parrot? The latest case of 3D printing at the service of our feathered friends comes from Lithuania, where an injured stork can now walk again thanks to custom 3D printed leg orthoses made by Mass Portal. The stork was initially discovered deep in the Lithuanian countryside, trapped between waste and ropes. While storks are known for their long and slender legs, this storks left foot was badly deformed, and its right foot was so critically injured, it could no longer stand, nevermind walk, and didnt stand a chance at survival in the wild. Rescuers took the bird into their care and tried several therapy solutions to relieve its pain, but none seemed to make any difference. Amputation wasnt an option either, since the bird was unlikely to survive the stress and anesthesia of a major surgery. Instead, they had the idea of treating the bird with 3D printed orthoses. Unlike prosthetics, which are used to replace a missing body part, orthoses are designed to fit onto an existing part to increase mobility and strengthmuch like this 3D printed hand orthosis, which helped a young man recover from paralysis. They thus brought the stork to Riga, Latvia-based 3D printer manufacturer Mass Portal, where co-founder Juris Klava committed to helping as best as possible. They began by measuring the birds legs and designing several prototype braces. In order to mimic the natural strength and flexibility of the storks actual legs, they chose to 3D print the orthoses using NinjaFlex flexible 3D printing filament. Choosing to 3D print them in bright orange, just like in the wild, was another thoughtful touch. After rapidly prototyping several iterations, Mass Portals designers finally settled on a set of Forrest Gump-esque 3D printed braces that fit the stork perfectly. A small bit of sponge padding allows the stork to put weight on its foot without causing discomfort or pain. Since receiving its 3D printed orthoses, the stork has been trying to walk and stand on its own, alternating from leg to leg in order to relieve pressure and slowly build up his strength. He still depends on his caretakers for survival, but he has been given a second chance, said Mass Portal. We can do more today for the well-being of non-human species than we ever could before. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: christian avila wrote at 8/25/2018 2:35:51 AM:anyone know the contact info. for the makers of this prost. leg brace for birds? chrisavila4@hotmail.com pleaseDima wrote at 3/12/2016 7:20:58 PM:Seriously, it's Latvian company. Lithuania is our neighbor. ;) http://massportal.com/en/info/contacts Mar 12, 2016 | By Tess Visual artist Delphine Diallo has been gaining attention recently for her thoughtful and provocative photographic and mixed media works that are challenging traditional roles of gender and race in the media. Her work, though always relevant, is particularly poignant within the recent climate of dissatisfaction with the predominantly white media. Working primarily with photography to represent women, often women of color, in an authentic, honest way, Diallo has also begun to incorporate a new technology into her artworks, that of 3D printing. Diallos recent project, called Ritual, was inspired by Joseph Campbells The Power of Myth: Masks of Eternity as well as the want to combine ancient mythologies with contemporary technologies. The result? A series of stunning portraits of women wearing 3D printed masks that reflects on femininity, life, and spirituality. Not having any expertise with 3D printing technologies, Diallo partnered with Nate Kolbeck, founder of 3D printing startup 3D Brooklyn, who helped her to bring her ideas to fruition. Together they 3D designed four white masks, each one representing a different theme of spirituality, and additively manufactured them on a Projet 660 Pro 3D out of a gypsum powder. Each of the masks bears some resemblance to a human face, as they were based on 3D scans of Diallos own face, but each possesses a distinctly surreal, technological quality. Perhaps the most striking mask, which appears to have three faces, was based on an Aztec ceremonial mask from 1300 AD which represents birth, life, and death. Diallo says of that mask, Ive always love to add masks in my portraits to express different states of emotions. It was an opportunity to push the boundary and use a new technology. One of the masks is my face duplicated three times. Kolbeck, who helped digitally model the masks with his team, has worked with artists before to help them 3D print their projects and appreciates the experience. As he says, Artists are fearless. They embrace new ideas and see potential much faster than society as a whole. Working with them helps us expand our own vision for the future. For the photoshoot with the three-faced mask, the results of which are pictured, Diallo wanted to explore themes of life and death and the chaos inherent in both of them. The final compositions consist of Diallo herself painted completely in white, surrounded by broken egg shells, wearing the 3D printed mask. For Diallo, the process was an extremely personal one, she says: I recently lost someone that I deeply love and processing this ritual through photography was an important part of connecting with the idea of the soul, rebirth, and a healing process to get the pain out of the body. Diallo, who has studied and worked with art for most of her life, was inspired to begin creating and representing the natural beauty and spirit of people by photographer Peter Beard, whom she assisted on a Pirelli calendar shoot in Botswana in 2008. As she explains, I wanted to create a new photography world where all my subjects are connected with their soul and match a more universal idea of beauty. Not one imposed by the media. With the recent incorporation of 3D printing into her work, Diallo has demonstrated that she is indeed fearless, as the scope of her work continues to grow and her attempts to challenge existing norms of beauty are becoming increasingly compelling. To check out more of Diallos photography and artworks, check out her Tumblr page. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Halloween events vary from trunk or treat events to haunted house A host of events are planned this month for Halloween from the annual haunted forest and trunk or treats to a new haunted house event downtown. (Bloomberg) The worlds largest banks are incorrectly accounting for their swaps trades, locking up money that could otherwise be paid out as dividends to their shareholders, according to a bold new academic paper. The transactions are funded with money thats borrowed from the banks treasury, and currently that lending cost is deducted from the value of the derivatives. Thats a mistake, according to Darrell Duffie, one of the reports authors who argues banks should instead charge their trading partners more up-front for the deals, freeing up cash. By calling out Wall Street accounting conventions, Duffie is in familiar territory. The Stanford University finance professor has already helped spur changes in how banks value credit risk and debt. This time, hes targeted a business worth many trillions of dollars, where even tiny accounting shortcomings can add up to serious money. The financial health of banks has been a primary concern of regulators since the 2008 credit crisis forced governments around the world to bail out the worlds largest dealers. Wall Street first revealed a switch to this accounting method for swapscalled funding valuation adjustment, or FVAin 2011 when Goldman Sachs Group Inc. mentioned it in its annual report. In 2013, JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-largest U.S. derivatives dealer, took a $1.5 billion loss on its fourth-quarter net revenue after it adopted FVA derivatives accounting. Gone Wrong The accounting has gone wrong, said Duffie, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a former member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorks financial advisory round table. It took the reports authors three years to understand and devise the new method, he added during an interview. I know this sounds strange, but its taken people a long time to get this, he said. The model is irrefutable. If you follow the math you cant reach any other conclusion. Duffies formulas boil down to this: Banks are masking the funding cost of their swaps desks by applying the costin the form of a discountto the value of those positions that they report in their financial results every quarter. Hes not accusing the banks of any wrongdoing; he just thinks theres a better way to book swaps activity. To illustrate his point, Duffie points to a separate market: U.S. Treasuries. A bank holding $100 million of Treasuries wouldnt value those securities at $99.5 million just because it had to borrow $500,000 to fund the purchase, Duffie said. Yet thats exactly what they do in swaps. No Sense That clearly makes no sense, because the Treasuries havent lost value, the authors said in the report. Instead, this trade should cause an addition of $100 million to the disclosed value of the banks assets and a reduction of nearly $0.5 million to the value of the banks equity. Nitpicking over a $500,000 cost on a $100 million trade might seem inconsequential, but the market for interest-rate swaps, the largest in the world, is $319 trillion in size, according to the Bank for International Settlements. Even small errors matter. To avoid this problem, banks should be pickier about what swaps they enter into and charge more for trades that require a lot of collateral or cash from the firms treasury, Duffie said. That would have the positive effect of lowering borrowing costs. The banks will be worth more, so theyll be able to issue debt at lower credit spreads, Duffie said. The bank switch to FVA came about for several reasons. In 2008, funding costs for bank swap deals saw severe deviations from the historic risk-free borrowing rate, according to the paper, which will be released publicly Friday. Also, large accounting firms have signaled a willingness to accept FVA disclosures in dealers financial statement, the authors said. Duffie was one of several academics who near the turn of the century helped change how Wall Street banks account for credit-valuation adjustments and debt-value adjustments. The former are used to measure capital requirements on derivatives trades while the latter reflect the gains or losses a bank would take if it bought back its debt. Duffie wrote the paper with Leif Andersen and Yang Song. Andersen is co-head of the global quantitative strategy group at Bank of America Corp. while Song is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program at Stanfords business school. In the new paper, the authors created a model they argue can be used by Wall Street banks to determine if a swap trade is beneficial or harmful from an equity shareholder point of view. While the issue of the FVA treatment by banks being wrong has been brought up by other researchers, this is the first time a model has been created to address it, they said. Duffie said he hasnt shown the paper to Wall Street executives yet. I imagine theres going to be some howling by the banks because they think their accounting practices are right, he said. &pictures, India's premium mass hindi movie channel, premieres yet another thriller - Alone on Saturday, 12th March at 8 PM. First time on television, Alone is directed by Bhushan Patel and stars Bollywood horror queen Bipasha Basu and television hunk Karan Singh Grover. The movie is about conjoined twins, one of whom dies under suspicious circumstances and the incidents thereafter. The movie revolves around Sanjana (Bipasha Basu), and her husband, Kabir (Karan Singh Grover). One night they receive a call about Sanjanas mother's accident and they quickly fly to Kerala. Here, Sanjana begins to have visions about her dead conjoined twin. Her husband does not believe her, and sends her to his former professor for spiritual healing. During the treatment, she tells the professor about her twin Anjana (also Bipasha Basu) and the love triangle amongst the three of them. Airmen to appear on Weather Geeks For some Airmen, being called a weather geek is a term of endearment. Two Airmen from the 557th Weather Wing recently embraced their inner geek and will share their passion and expertise on an upcoming episode of "Weather Geeks" on the Weather Channel. Lt. Col. James Weaver, the deputy commander of the 2nd Weather Group, and Staff Sgt. Trevor Reiss, a weather forecaster assigned to the 21st Operational Weather Squadron, will be featured on the weather-driven talk show airing March 13 at noon EST. The show broadcasts weekly and is hosted by Dr. Marshall Shepherd, a University of Georgia professor and 2013 president of the American Meteorological Society. Weaver and Reiss traveled to the Weather Channels production studio in Atlanta on Feb. 25 to answer questions about the unique mission of the 557th WW and the roles and responsibilities of an Air Force meteorologist. As a weather officer with 19 years of experience, in addition to bachelors and masters degrees in meteorology, Weaver was fielded to answer questions and discuss the career field from a leadership perspective. Weather officers provide critical oversight and expertise across the range of Air Force weather operations, all while leading flights and squadrons of weather personnel. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Weaver said. This was my first experience being interviewed for a television show and was made all the more unique and special because it's a show I currently watch and enjoy. The interview provided an outstanding platform to inform the American public about the 557th Weather Wing, its mission and people. I'm honored to represent the more than 1,500 active-duty, reservists and civilians who work so hard to accomplish the mission every day. Reiss, who has been in the Air Force since September 2010 and graduated from the Weather Apprentice Course at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, offered a junior enlisted perspective. The enlisted force within the 557th WW directly supports their customers needs by analyzing data, drawing hazards charts, briefing pilots, creating forecasts and more. I was excited to just have a chance to tell our story, Reiss said. A lot of people dont know that the Air Force has a weather department. The Air Force takes citizens and transforms them into operational forecasters. Not only are we looking at the weather and putting together all the scientific processes, but were then transforming this information to relevant products for our customers. When the show producers reached out to the Air Force with an invitation to showcase weather Airmen, leadership from the 557th WW selected Weaver and Reiss to participate, and they both jumped at the opportunity. We wanted to shed light on the importance and often overlooked role of the military weather forecasters, said Mike Chesterfield, the "Weather Geeks" executive producer. The professionalism and the enthusiasm the Airmen have for their jobs was on full display. We were thrilled to host the team and we are certain that the perspective that they provided will not only be informative but will be fascinating for our audience. After a tour of the Weather Channel facility, weather lab and production studio, Weaver and Reiss sat down with Sheppard and discussed what exactly an Air Force weather forecaster does. The 557th is the Air Force's only weather wing, and we provide specialized airpower on behalf of the American people for the Air Force, Department of Defense, joint warfighters and our coalition partners and allies, Weaver said. You won't find a more dedicated and professional group of Airmen in the Air Force. Reiss explained that the underlying meaning of being a weather geek is having a passion for meteorology and learning the science of Mother Nature. Although the fundamentals of being a meteorologist are fairly standard, Air Force meteorologists and weather technicians are quite different than what the general public typically expects from meteorologists on television; the biggest difference being the customers they support. Missions can fail and lives may be lost if commanders are not provided with timely and accurate forecasts and overall weather situational awareness, Weaver said. Members of the 557th WW, headquartered at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, provide aircrews with very detailed aviation forecasts, issue watches and warnings and produce airfield forecasts for more than 534 locations, protecting over a million Airmen, Soldiers, family members and $1 trillion in DOD assets around the world. Air Force continues to pursue total force integration The Air Force continues to make strides toward total force integration, according to an annual report submitted to Congress March 4. The report is based on recommendations from the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force and focuses on how the force structure should be modified to best fill current and future mission requirements, an area Air Force senior leaders have been vocal about, expressing their desires to continue to expand total force integration. We are one Air Force, said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III. Were committed to this idea and its foundational to the way we present our capabilities. Were not going to be operationally successful any other way. The service recently completed an intensive analysis of all Air Force primary mission areas. The analysis provided active and air reserve component force-mix options and reliable data to inform future acquisition decisions. As a result, more than a dozen force-mixing recommendations were carried into the fiscal year 2018 strategic planning process. More than 78 total force integration proposals are being pursued, including 41 recommended by the NCSAF. In fact, the Air Force has launched a series of initiatives designed to break down existing barriers to a total Air Force. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve provide the nation a vital capability that is functionally integrated and operationally indistinguishable from the active force," said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James. "This maximizes our total force and secures (our) top priorities of taking care of people, balancing today's readiness with tomorrows modernization, and making every dollar count." An important part of integration is having and employing the same equipment. The fielding of the KC-46 Pegasus and F-35 Lightning II is one example of the services commitment to concurrent and proportional fielding of new equipment and technology. A 2016 revision of Air Force Policy Directive 10-3, Air Reserve Component Forces, will capture this practice. Changing policies is just one step toward incorporating cross-component interoperability into Air Force culture. Processes and systems must support this interoperability as well. To this end, the service has undertaken initiatives aimed at supporting total force Airmen. For example, by expanding the Career Intermission Program to allow members receiving retention bonuses and those under an initial service obligation to apply and removing the statutory participation limits, more Airmen are eligible for this opportunity which allows Airmen the ability to transfer out of the active component and into the Individual Ready Reserve for up to three years while retaining certain benefits. Also, total force Airmen transitioning from the active to reserve component will soon be afforded the ability to ship household goods to their reserve duty location versus their home of record. Other significant interoperability initiatives surround the streamlining of cross-component personnel and pay systems. These changes include the standing up of base-level total force support squadrons at select locations, and the launching of a Total Force Virtual Personnel Center to facilitate electronic processing of common awards and decorations. Together these efforts are aimed at providing more effective and consistent support to Airmen from all components. "We are proud of our total force accomplishments, which are increasingly leveraging the unique skills and experience of the reserve component, and creating the strategic agility required to meet the challenges emerging to our Air Force," said Lt. Gen. James F. Jackson, the chief of Air Force Reserve. Another example of how the Air Force is leveraging the air reserve component is the services pursuit of a legislative change to allow air reserve component instructors to train, as a primary duty, active component students. The Air Force has 2,400 instructor pilots, 600 of whom are from the air reserve component. However, current law prohibits active guard and reserve personnel and technicians from training active component students as a primary duty. While Congress granted temporary and limited relief in the fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, the Air Force is pursuing an extension of that temporary authority while continuing to pursue multiple solutions to facilitate total force training. The services consistent and measured move towards efficiency and effectiveness can be seen in the Integrated Wing Pilot Program. The program, recommended by the NCSAF, aligns Air Force associations under a single, integrated chain of command. The program will begin in fiscal 2017 with the 916th Air Refueling Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. This Integrated Wing Pilot Program will help the Air Force determine if its possible to improve upon the existing association construct. If successful, the Air Force could apply the lessons learned from the program to other organizations. Total force integration is also reflected at the leadership levels. The Air Force plans to fill key leadership positions with cross-component Airmen. Currently, three Air Force Reserve officers are set to command active component units, including two maintenance squadrons and a fighter wing. Those reserve officers will parallel the four active component officers who are currently serving in wing or vice wing command positions in both Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units. Similarly, the Air Force Chiefs Group actively considers chief master sergeants from both the active and reserve component for certain senior enlisted billets. "The relationship between the Air Force and Air National Guard has never been better in my memory and I attribute it to the leadership of Secretary James, Gen. Welsh, Gen. Grass, and the adjutants general. We are a total Air Force and will continue to integrate active duty and Air National Guard where it benefits the nation," said Maj. Gen. Brian G. Neal, the Air National Guard acting director. Neals remarks echo that of other total force leadership, showing the services commitment to cross-component integration as the Air Force continues to explore options on how to better support all Airmen, regardless of component. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James met with Airmen to gain a better understanding of Luke Air Force Bases mission with a focus on F-35 Lightning II operations, and its maintenance and training facilities March 9-10.During her first visit to the base, James held an all call where she took time to thank Airmen and give her impressions of Luke AFB."Wow, what a great total force story we have going on here," James said. "We have active duty, the Reserve component, civilians, and fantastic contractor support working side by side with our international partners. That is the broadest of the broad total force story, and I'm impressed with it."Most of James' day involved briefings about F-35 operations and touring F-35 facilities.James spoke about how impressed she was with the leadership team with respect to F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-35 training, as well as her tour of different parts of base and interacting with Airmen in their work centers."When it comes to the F-35 program, this is a program that has really taken off," James said. "Pilots and maintainers are being trained, sorties are being flown and challenges are being overcome. There is a can-do spirit here."The secretarys visit included stops to the Academic Training Center, a state-of-the-art training center for fighter pilots, and the 61st Fighter Squadron and 61st Aircraft Maintenance Unit, the first squadrons to fly and maintain the F-35 at the base.During her tour, James discussed everything from flight equipment; the performance of ALIS, the F-35's autonomic logistics information system; the next generation F-35 helmet; and Luke's partnerships with other nations training here.James voiced how impressed she was of the support she has seen for the 56th Fighter Wings mission to train some of the best F-35 and F-16 fighter pilots, from Arizona leaders such as Gov. Doug Ducey and community groups like Luke West Valley Partnership.She also remarked how the work Luke Airmen are doing to accomplish that mission will give America aerial victory in the future."I'm truly blown away by all you are accomplishing here," James said. "You truly are making the future of our Air Force happen here today. The crucial training capabilities that you are providing will allow the United States to prevail in any kind of fight, particularly that high-end type of the fight: the anti-access, area-denial hard fight." During her speech, James made points on global security, a smaller Air Force, the need to modernize the force and increase overall readiness, as well as discussing her priorities for the service. James fielded a few questions from the audience before departing, but not before giving Luke AFB one last thank you. "Team Luke, you are doing a fantastic job," she said. "These are critical capabilities for today, as well as for the future of our Air Force, and you are going to make it happen for us all." Today our Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that the government would continue to push for reforms. His agenda for reform to transform is yet to be finished he said in the Advancing Asia conference. Modi was not only confident but also determined towards his goals. These days unwanted controversies somewhere shifted the goals of BJP, but after Delhi and Bihar defeat and after the recent Kanhaiya Kumar episode, one can see a major shift and realization in Modi. He is here to deliver his promises. Modi is one of the strongest representations that India has today. Many like me voted and campaigned for him with great faith, but the arrogance and false pride of BJP leaders has damaged integrity of party at large. As Modi said even as India is now the fastest growing economy and ranks at the top in terms of favoured investment destination, reforms will continue to be pursued in the right earnest. His agenda for reform to transform is yet to be finished, Entrepreneurship is also booming, following a series of steps his ministry has taken. India needs reform, it needs change it also need global representation, Modi ji is undoubtedly heading towards the same. But the unwanted hullabaloos are overshadowing these efforts that he is making. BJP leader needs to be more matured and they should go with the idea of Modis vision of India, rather than getting involved in pretty traps like national, anti-national or religious issues. One Rohith Vemula or Kanhaiya Kumar cannot shift the focus of Prime minister if his ministers and supporters do not give much weight to such unsolicited issues. In the recent past, India has also dispelled the myth that democracy and rapid economic growth cannot go together our country has also shown the world that a large, diverse country like India can be managed in a way that can promote economic growth and maintain social stability. The prime minister said along with focus on macro-economic stability, removing corruption and also interference in decisions of banks and regulators, his government is also helping the farm sector but not based on giving hand-outs. Our government aims to double farmer incomes, they have increased investment in the rural and agriculture sector, because that is where a majority of India still lives. Slowly but steadily Modi government is focusing on each and every sector, they should be given those interrupted five years to draw a conclusion. We as Indian citizen need to trust our government and support their initiatives to make our country best among all. India is a haven of macro-economic stability and a beacon of hope, dynamism and opportunity, there are many governments reform agenda from opening nearly all sectors to foreign investment to improving ease of doing business on the list, Modi government now intends to focus on the rural sector. They have increased investment in the rural and agriculture sector, because that is where a majority of India still lives. They are committed to provide training to government and public sector employees. It will enhance their skills and improve the quality of their policy inputs. It will also provide technical assistance to governments and public institutions. In the past 60 years, India could have grown at a much higher rate with a much better infrastructure and less poverty but it did not because of the bottlenecks of corruption and bureaucracy. Reforms in the 90s were needed badly; they did not happen because there was no other way. Lets admit that the much-needed change is happening now and the past 10 years were a sad chapter in Indias history. Since Modi has come to power there is pride. People understand the importance of keeping the country clean, refusing subsidies. India is here to go ahead in all spares and our Prime Minister is committed to Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas lets join hands and give him due support. If he fails we voters know what to do, but this is too early to think on such lines. A UN report describing sweeping crimes like children and the disabled being burned alive and fighters being allowed to rape women as payment shows South Sudan is facing one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, the UN human rights chief said on Saturday. Zeid Raad al-Hussein lamented the crisis in the nearly 5-year-old country has been largely overlooked by the international community, and his office said attacks against civilians, forced disappearances, rape and other violations could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The UN report released today is the work of an assessment team deployed in South Sudan between October and January and says state actors bear most responsibility for the crimes. It said Zeid recommends that the UN Security Council consider expanding sanctions already in place by imposing a comprehensive arms embargo on South Sudan and consider referring the matter to the International Criminal Court if other judicial avenues fail. In scorching detail, the report, which focused on events in 2015, cited cases of parents being forced to watch their children being raped, and said investigators had received information that some armed militias affiliated with government forces raided cattle, stole personal property, raped and abducted women and girls as a type of payment. The quantity of rapes and gang-rapes described in the report must only be a snapshot of the real total, Zeid said in a statement. This is one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, with massive use of rape as an instrument of terror and weapon of war, yet it has been more or less off the international radar. David Marshall, the UN human rights officer who coordinated the assessment team, told reporters in New York that the machinery of violence by the government needs to be dismantled. It was a reign of terror, he said. Also on today, human rights watchdog Amnesty International accused the South Sudanese government of war crimes after its troops allegedly suffocated 60 boys and men in a cargo container at a Catholic church and then dumped their bodies in an open field. Web Toolbar by Wibiya Canada is finally putting a Canadian woman on the currency. With the exception of Queen Elizabeth II, who adorns the $20 bill, Canadas paper money only features dudes right now. The Bank of Canada says it will hold a broad public consultation to pick an iconic woman to add to the next set of bank notes to be released in 2018. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the change on International Womens Day. Morneau said women have largely been unrepresented on our bank notes and that featuring one on the money would recognize them as a celebrated part of our history. The government is asking for people to nominate their favourite Canadian ladies. Web Toolbar by Wibiya Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went all out for International Womens Day on Tuesday. His office released a statement saying the Liberal government holds gender equality near and dear. Trudeau also told a bunch of media outlets that he was a proud feminist. Web Toolbar by Wibiya On Sunday, Syrian refugees arrived at the Executive Airport Plaza in Vancouver, Canada. At that same hotel that weekend were attendees of a convention for British Columbia-based furries called VancouFUR. A card passed out to convention attendees reads: Please be aware that our hotel has been chosen as one of the temporary housing locations for the Syrian refugees coming to Canada. A major concern that VancouFUR has is ensuring that each and every one of the refugees (and attendees) feels welcome and safe and the fact that this is likely to be a major culture shock to them. VancouFUR is western Canadas largest convention for furries a community of people who enjoy dressing up in anthropomorphic animal costumes. Chris Jantz, who has been part of the fandom for three years, told The New York Daily News that children in the group of refugees were really excited about the furries at the hotel. They saw people in giant animal costumes. To the children they were just cartoons from stuff like Yo Gabba Gabba!, etc., and they wanted to say hi, Jantz told the Daily News. I dont think they had any concept of the furry fandom. Based on the photos from furries in attendance, it seems like the refugee children had a nice time playing with them. While some online have expressed disgust that Syrian children were playing with furries who are considered a fetish community by many Jantz said that sex was a definite part of the furry fandom but not required. Heres a video of the kids dancing with a furry dressed like a dragon (which is technically called a scalie). The Canadian government recently met its goal of bringing in 25,000 Syrian refugees. Now, authorities are attempting to find housing for the refugees, 60% of whom are reportedly without temporary housing. Read more... Web Toolbar by Wibiya Members of Parliament will soon vote on whether to study online pornography and, potentially, how to regulate it. The motion comes from rookie Conservative MP Arnold Viersen, who is affiliated with a Christian group whos mission is to bring a biblical perspective to our civil authorities. Through a press release, Viersen warned that violent and degrading sexually explicit material is easily accessible to anyone with an access to the internet, without restriction. His motion would direct the House of Commons Health Committee to study the public health effects of the ease of access and viewing of online violent and degrading sexually explicit material. The committee would report its findings to Parliament by June of 2017. Viersens motion will go to a vote this June. Hell need support from a significant number of Liberal MPs for it to pass. Arnold Viersen Via Twitter Weve reached out to Liberal House Leader Dominic Leblanc to see whether his party plans to support the motion. Well update this story if we hear back. Viersen cited four examples of the damage of online pornography: the suicides of teenagers Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd, the sexual assault trial of former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi, and reports of Dalhousie dentistry students posting sexist comments on Facebook. We are compelled to ask ourselves where the individuals in these reports get the notion that sexually violent and degrading attitudes towards women and children is normal and acceptable, said Viersen. Read more... WASHINGTON, March 11, 2016 A Government Accountability Office report released Friday suggests that USDA hasnt been adequately monitoring declines in native bee populations. USDA has increased monitoring of honey bee colonies managed by beekeepers to better estimate losses nationwide, but does not have a mechanism in place to coordinate the monitoring of wild, native bees that the White House Pollinator Health Task Forces May 2015 strategy directs USDA and other federal agencies to conduct, according to the report requested by Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. The GAO report recommended that USDA increase monitoring of native bee populations and evaluate the effectiveness of its farm conservation programs on promoting pollinator health. The department agreed the recommendations were valid, but said implementation would be delayed due to scarce resources. It would be physically and fiscally impossible to monitor all of the approximately 4,000 species of native bees in the U.S., USDA Chief Scientist Catherine Woteki said in response to GAOs recommendations. However, she said the Agricultural Research Service would be working this year to determine the historic distribution of a common set of sentinel bee species identified with help from the Interior Department. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is also in the process of develop(ing) a feature in its conservation planning database to enable tracking on all acres on which conservation practices are planned and applied that will provide a benefit to pollinators, not just those acres from targeted pollinator initiatives, such as the NRCS Honey Bee effort, Woteki said. GAO recommended that NRCS and the Farm Service Agency increase evaluation of the effectiveness of their efforts to restore and enhance bee habitat plantings across the nation, including identifying gaps in expertise and technical assistance funding available to field offices. GAO, citing the White House Pollinator Health Task Forces May 2015 strategy, also recommended EPA identify the most commonly used tank mixtures to evaluate the effects on bees. Beekeepers have raised concern that these mixtures of pesticide products may have synergistic effects on bees, meaning that the effect of the combination is greater than the sum of the effects of the individual pesticides, GAO said. Learn about the benefits of subscribing to Agri-Pulse. Sign up for your four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription. EPA said there is opportunity to identify some commonly used tank mixtures, but assessing their risks, given the wide variety of combinations, can be challenging, and determining the specific combination to test could be difficult to identify at the national level. EPA Assistant Administrator James Jones, who responded to the GAO draft, said his agency may be able to use data from California to identify chemicals that are used in particularly vulnerable scenarios (e.g., almonds, blueberries, cherries during pollination services) in California. By November 2017, the EPA will conduct a case study of honey bees in almond crops and determine the most commonly used tank mixtures for this scenario. Iraqi President: Christians Are 'Original Members' of Country The Assyrian village of Upper Sharanish in North Iraq. The president of Iraq said this week that Christians are the "original" members of his nation. During his first visit to Egypt, Iraqi president Fouad Masum, who is of Kurdish descent, told Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros II that Christians are an integral part of Iraqi heritage. The Fides News Agency reported on the meeting between Masum and Tawadros II, saying that the two leaders agreed that "Christians are 'original members' of Iraq, as evidenced by the ancient monasteries scattered throughout the country." "[...] jihadi groups, such as Daesh (also known as ISIS, IS or ISIL), have raged not only against them but also against Muslim populations, as evidenced by Muslim victims -- even Sunni -- and the Islamic Caliphate mosques destroyed in Mosul," the news agency reported, saying that Masum believes Iraqi Christians have been "threatened by sectarian rifts and engaged in conflict with the self-styled Islamic State that have settled in Mosul since June 2014." The two countries also discussed how to make Iraq a stable region in the Middle East, with Masum thanking Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for his continued support in fighting the country's terrorist groups, including the Islamic State. Iraq's presidential media group released a statement saying "Masum highlighted the importance of benefiting from the Egyptian expertise in industry, agriculture and tourism, as well as the development of cultural and academic relations between the two countries," adding that "Iraq will pass all obstacles to build a united and progressive democratic state." The meeting came as the U.S. State Department is nearing a deadline to decide whether to label what is happening to the Christian population in Iraq and Syria as a "genocide." Last year, Congress gave the U.S. State Department a deadline of March 16 to decide to describe these atrocities as such. The Knights of Columbus and the In Defense of Christians issued an extensive report this week that they say includes definitive evidence proving there is a genocide in the Middle East. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said last week at a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on Capitol Hill that "fact-gathering" needs to happen before the U.S. can label the Middle East situation as a genocide. "It does require a lot of fact-gathering," the Secretary of State said, as reported by Fox News. "I mean you have to get the facts from the ground, more than just anecdotal." White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has also been hesitant to use the word genocide, saying during a press conference in February that the label may pose legal issues for the U.S. "There are lawyers considering whether or not that term can be properly applied in this scenario. What is clear and what is undeniable and what the president has now said twice in the last 24 hours is that we know that there are religious minorities in Iraq and in Syria, including Christians, that are being targeted by ISIL terrorists because of their religion and that attack on religious minorities is an attack on all people of faith and it is important for all of us to stand up and speak out about it," Earnest told reporters on February 4. "This is an open question and one that continues to be considered by administration lawyers," Earnest added. EMERSON In this Aug. 12, 1999 file photo, musician Keith Emerson plays the new Van Koevering Interactive Piano, designed by electronic engineer Bob Moog, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Emerson, the keyboardist and founding member of the 1970s progressive rock group Emerson, Lake and Palmer, died Thursday, March 10, 2016, at home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 71. (AP Photos/Damian Dovarganes, File) LOS ANGELES -- Keith Emerson, founder and keyboardist of the progressive-rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer, has died in what may have been a suicide, it was announced Friday. He was 71. Emerson's longtime partner, Mari Kawaguchi, called police to his condominium in the coastal suburb of Santa Monica, California, about 1:30 a.m. Emerson had an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, police said. "It's being investigated as a suicide," Sgt. Erika Aklufi said. Kawaguchi told police that Emerson could have died anywhere between Thursday evening and Friday morning. "Keith was a gentle soul whose love for music and passion for his performance as a keyboard player will remain unmatched for many years to come," his former bandmate, drummer Carl Palmer, said in a statement. "He was a pioneer and an innovator whose musical genius touched all of us in the worlds of rock, classical and jazz. I will always remember his warm smile, good sense of humor, compelling showmanship and dedication to his musical craft. I am very lucky to have known him and to have made the music we did together." Kawaguchi said Emerson was able to compose without any instrument. "He was just natural. The music was always in his head, always," she said. "Even when he was sleeping, you know, I could tell he was always thinking about music. Sometimes he would wake up and compose music. And it was all so, so beautiful." Emerson, Palmer and vocalist/guitarist Greg Lake were giants of progressive rock in the 1970s, recording six platinum-selling albums. They and other hit groups such as Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues and Genesis stepped away from rock's emphasis on short songs with dance beats, instead creating albums with ornate pieces full of complicated rhythms, intricate chords and time signature changes. The orchestrations drew on classical and jazz styles and sometimes wedded traditional rock instruments with full orchestras. Emerson, Lake and Palmer's 1973 album "Brain Salad Surgery" included a nearly 30-minute composition called "Karn Evil 9" that featured a Moog synthesizer and the eerie, carnival-like lyric: "Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends." A musical prodigy, Emerson was born in Todmorden, Yorkshire in England. By his late teens, he was playing in blues and jazz clubs in London. He helped form one of the first progressive rock groups, the Nice, before hooking up with Lake and Palmer in 1970 and debuting with them at the Isle of Wight Festival, shows that also featured Jimi Hendrix and the Who. Although it filled stadiums, ELP also was ridiculed as the embodiment of the pomposity and self-indulgence that rock supposedly stood against. When the punk movement took off in the mid-'70s, the band was a special target, openly loathed by the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten among others. Years later, Rotten (then calling himself John Lydon) and Emerson became friends, Lydon told News of the World in 2007. "He's a great bloke," Lydon said. "I've told Keith in no uncertain terms that what put me off his band were those 20-minute organ solos and that film of their convoy of trucks crossing America." ELP broke up in 1979, reunited in 1991, later disbanded again and reunited one last time for a 2010 tour. Throughout, Emerson continued to compose and perform, sometimes solo and other times with various musicians, including Lake. Despite his influence, Emerson never considered himself a rock or pop icon and his true musical devotion lay elsewhere. "At home, he either listened to either classical or jazz. We never listened to rock," Kawaguchi said. "He hated being called rock star or prog-rock star...he wanted to be known as composer," she said. "He never succumbed to being commercially successful. He had no interest. He always said: 'I'm not a rock star. I've never been a rock star. All I want is to play music.'" Emerson had been composing and working with internationally known symphonies, including two in Germany and Japan, and was about to embark on a short tour in Japan starting on April 14 with his band, Kawaguchi said. His work included a classical piano concerto. "All these people from the classical world were playing his music," she said. "When he was young, he was using classical music for rock and now the wheel has turned and now the classical world is using his compositions." The William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore remains on lockdown this morning after an overnight riot that left a guard and the warden stabbed. The injuries weren't life-threatening, Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton said this morning and the riot was brought under control about 5 a.m. The first assault happened about 9:15 p.m. Friday when a correctional officer responded to a fight between two inmates in one of the prison dorms. The officer was stabbed when he tried to detain one of the inmates involved in the fight, Horton said. Sources tell NorthEscambia.com that the officer was stabbed nine times. When Warden Carter Davenport and other officers entered the dorm to assess the situation, Davenport was also stabbed. He remained at the prison, and was treated on-site for injuries, Horton said. The injured corrections officer was taken to a hospital. Both are expected to be OK. After the assaults, Horton said, inmates gained access to a hallway just outside the housing unit and started a fire. The Alabama Department of Corrections deployed three Corrections Emergency Response Teams (CERT) to the prison, and they detained the inmates and secured the area. Horton said prison officials estimate 100 inmates were involved in the disturbance. No other areas in the prison were affected, Horton said. Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to the scene, including Atmore police, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office and Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Alabama State Troopers responded for perimeter security, said spokesman Sgt. Steve Jarrett. Witnesses reported seeing multiple ambulances headed toward the prison, but Horton said there were no injuries other than the guard and the warden. While officials remained tight-lipped overnight, photos and video of the reported uprising quickly surfaced on social media. The images showed fires at the prison, and inmates with their faces covered. Inmates were reporting that the "gates are rolled up" and beds have been overturned. One man posted this on Facebook: "Attention: We need yall help here at Holman Correction Facility Prison. The police down here beating on and jus treating us any kind way. We down here fighting for are lifes. Please contact the News, Newspaper, Radio station. NCAAP. Help please." Zannice Houston posted this on her Facebook page: "Please pray for my son in Holman Prison. A riot lord Jesus." Houston told AL.com that her son, Jamario J.E. Houston, called via collect call two hours ago and said that prisoners have built a wall, and they are waiting for more authorities to come to the prison. "Yes, right now it's not under control, Lord Jesus," Houston said. She said she hasn't heard from her son since then. Another woman posted this: "I know its late. But i need help from my family and friends especially from my Sister and Brothers in Christ. I need Prayers to go up for Holman Prison the inmates the guard everyone down there in that facility. No weapon formed against them shall prosper. Thank You!!!!!!" Horton today said corrections officers and the CERT teams are conducting a complete search of the prison for illegal cell phones and contraband. The inmates responsible for assaulting the officer and Davenport, as well as other inmates involved in the disturbance, have been segregated from the prison's general population. Investigators and the ADOC's Intelligence Division remain at the prison. Horton said criminal charges are pending against those involved. The prison, he said, is secure and will remain on lockdown until the investigation is complete. A video posted to Facebook (warning: graphic language) which claims to be from inside the prison shows inmates tending a fire in a dorm area. Anybody gotta family member at Holman prison in asking y'all pray for us! It's a big riot goin on n we don't kno if we... Posted by Bookie da Ynbm on Friday, March 11, 2016 Attention .. We need yall help here at Holman Correction Facility Prison. The police down here beating on and jus... Posted by Chris Lyl East Syde on Friday, March 11, 2016 Please Pray For My Son In Holman Prison a riot lord Jesus Posted by Zannice Houston on Friday, March 11, 2016 The William C. Holman Correctional Facility was constructed in 1968 and 1969. The facility was officially open in December, 1969, at a cost of five million dollars. The first prisoner was received on December 15, 1969. Holman Correctional Facility houses Death Row inmates and is the only facility in the state that carries out executions. Additional housing of Death Row inmates is located at the William C. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Jefferson County. The present population of Holman consists of minimum through closed custody inmates, including life without parole and Death Row inmates, according to the Department of Corrections website. The living quarters have a total capacity of 998 available beds. There are 630 population beds with Housing Units A-D having a capacity of 114 each and Housing Unit E with a capacity of 174. There are 7 infirmary beds. There are 200 segregation unit beds and Death Row has a capacity of 194 for a total of 1031 beds. Holman is located in south Alabama, ten miles north of Atmore, 60 miles northeast of Mobile. The perimeter of the security compound is surrounded by two fences. The inner fence is taut wire fence with the outer fence being chain link. The compound has six towers and two perimeter vehicles, which operate twenty four hours a day. During the hours of darkness, the perimeter is fully lighted, according to the website. AL.com journalist Madison Underwood contributed to this report. CHICAGO -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump canceled one of his signature rallies on Friday, calling off the event in Chicago due to safety concerns after protesters packed into the arena where it was to take place. The announcement that the billionaire businessman would postpone the rally until another day led a large portion of the crowd inside the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion to break out into raucous cheers. Meanwhile, supporters of the candidate started chanting "We want Trump! We want Trump!" There were isolated physical confrontations between some members of the crowd after the event was canceled. There was no sign of Trump inside the arena on the college campus, where dozens of UIC faculty and staff had petitioned university administrators to cancel the rally. They cited concerns it would create a "hostile and physically dangerous environment" for students. Before the announcement the event wouldn't take place, a handful of intense verbal clashes took place between Trump supporters and protesters as the crowd waited for his arrival. For the first time during his White House bid, the crowd appeared to be an equal mix of those eager to cheer on the real estate mogul and those overtly opposed to his candidacy. When one African-American protester was escorted out before the event started, the crowd erupted into chants of "Let them stay!" Veronica Kowalkowsky, an 18-year-old Trump supporter, said before the event started that she had no ill will toward the protesters -- but didn't think they felt the same way. "I feel a lot of hate," she said. "I haven't said anything bad to anyone." Hours before the event was scheduled to start, hundreds of people lined up outside the arena at the University of Illinois at Chicago -- a civil and immigrant rights organizing hub with large minority student populations. Trump backers were separated from an equally large crowd of anti-Trump protesters by a heavy police presence and barricades. Some Trump supporters walking into the area chanted, "USA! USA!" and "Illegal is illegal." One demonstrator shouted back, "Racist!" One protester, 64-year-old Dede Rottman of Chicago, carried a placard that read: "Build a Wall Around Trump. I'll Pay for it." However, 19-year-old Rusty Shackleford of Lombard, in line to attend the Trump rally, said he was there to "support the man who wants to make America great again." Chicago community activist Quo Vadis said hundreds of protesters had positioned themselves in groups around the arena, and that they intend to demonstrate right after Trump takes the stage. Their goal, he said, is "for Donald to take the stage and to completely interrupt him. The plan is to shut Donald Trump all the way down." Joey Crampton.png Joey Crampton (center) holds his son Winston and stands with state Sen. Clyde Chambliss and state Rep. Paul Beckman who sponsored "Winston's Law" this session in the Alabama Legislature. The bill passed last month and will become law. (Justice for Winston) A father who lobbied for tougher penalties for abusers of children was arrested on Friday on two counts of domestic violence. Joey Crampton was charged with two misdemeanor counts of domestic violence third degree and booked into Montgomery City Jail, WSFA reported. Crampton is accused of strangling his wife, Leah, causing her neck to bruise and throwing their 8-month-old child. Leah Crampton claims Joey was smoking marijuana in front of his 4-year-old son Winston, whom Joey Crampton gained custody of in September of last year. Roianne Houlton Conner, an attorney representing Leah Crampton, issued a statement on Saturday. Leah Crampton reported the alleged assault to Montgomery police on Thursday, which led to the arrest of her husband, Conner stated. A restraining order was issued. Subsequently, Autauga County Circuit Court granted Leah Crampton temporary custody of Winston and the couple's younger children. Winston is at the center of a high-profile child abuse case in Elmore County. His mother, Hallee McLeod, and her boyfriend, Scott Hicks, are accused of severely abusing the boy. McLeod was indicted on aggravated child abuse and chemical endangerment charges. Hicks is charged with child neglect with serious injury. Winston was found unresponsive and suffering from multiple injuries in the truck of his mother's boyfriend in Panama City, Fla. in September. Hicks had traveled to Florida to resolve two outstanding warrants, and deputies found the child left in his vehicle. The child had multiple bruises, a laceration on his head and dried blood on his lips. Since that incident, Joey Crampton has lobbied for legislation dubbed Winston's Law, which created the crime of aggravated child abuse of a child under the age of 6. The offense is Class A felony, which carries a prison sentence of no less than 10 years. The Alabama Legislature passed the bill last month. Crampton issued this statement about the bill in January: "Children are suffering and will continue to suffer from abuse. While we may not be able to prevent child abuse in itself, the reality is the effects of it lasts a lifetime for these young victims," he stated. "Those who perpetrate these types of crimes need harsher punishments to deter them, but also because the children, unfortunately, will carry the effects into adulthood and may never be able to develop in a healthy, normal way. Sadly, the perpetrators of the crimes go on with their lives. What better way to serve this vulnerable population, by seeking much needed change through new legislative efforts in Winston's honor. This ensures what Winston has endured will not be in vain." Support for the legislation was rallied through the Facebook community "JusticeforWinston." Concerned residents began posting about Crampton's arrest on Friday night asking for answers from the Facebook page's administrators. "The admins at the Justice for Winston page know what everyone else knows regarding the recent arrest of Winston's father, Joey. This page was originally started by concerned citizens of the community dedicated to seeing justice for Winston and are, as we know you are, still dedicated to seeing legal justice for this child and others that are victims of child abuse. At this point, Joey has been removed as an administrator of this page." The admins at the Justice for Winston page know what everyone else knows regarding the recent arrest of Winston's... Posted by JusticeforWinston on Friday, March 11, 2016 Crampton posted this message to his Facebook page on Thursday: "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger." A riot involving about 100 inmates at Holman Correctional Facility and the stabbing of a prison officer five days earlier show that Alabama's jam-packed prisons have reached a critical point, Gov. Robert Bentley said today. "A volatile mix of overcrowding and understaffing have created an environment that is dangerous to both inmates as well as the corrections officers who serve our state," Bentley said in a statement. "Our state must take the necessary steps to address and solve this problem immediately. We must reduce overcrowding and provide facilities that are safer and more secure for both inmates and corrections officers." Alabama has about 24,000 inmates in prisons designed for about 13,000. Bentley and Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn are pushing a plan to build three new men's prisons and close 13 of the 15 the state now operates. The plan also includes replacing Tutwiler Prison for Women with a new facility. The plan calls for borrowing up to $800 million through a bond issue. Bentley and Dunn say the debt, about $50 million a year over 30 years, can be repaid by the savings the state will make by closing the outdated facilities. The legislation authorizing the plan would also pledge a portion of an existing state property tax as a secondary source to repay the debt. The bill is pending in legislative committees. Builders and architects have raised some objections to the plan to hire a single contractor for the project through a design/build approach, rather than having an initial contract for design, with builders then bidding on the construction phase. The governor said the design/build approach is a more cost-effective way to complete the project. The three regional men's prisons would house 4,000 inmates each, while the women's prison would house 1,200. Overall, prison capacity under the plan would increase by about 3,000 beds, according to the DOC. Last year, the Legislature approved legislation aimed at reducing the prison population over time. The law created a new classification for some property and drug crimes intended to place defenders in community corrections programs, rather than prison. It also raised the emphasis on parole and supervision of offenders to keep them out of prison or keep them from returning. The criminal justice reforms and the prison construction plan would reduce the prison occupancy rates to 125 percent over five years, according to the Department of Corrections. The disturbance at Holman erupted Friday night. The warden and a corrections officer were stabbed after the officer intervened in a fight between inmates. Inmates gained access to a hallway and set fires in the prison. Emergency response teams were able to secure the area and place the prison on lockdown, according to a news release from the Department of Corrections. The warden was treated at the prison while the officer was taken to a medical facility. Their injuries were not life-threatening, according to the Department of Corrections. Earlier this week, an officer at St. Clair Correctional Facility was stabbed while breaking up a fight between inmates. His injuries were not life-threatening. The stabbing was just the latest in a string of violence at the St. Clair prison. The Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador shows signs of erupting, 138 years after its last big eruption left 1,000 people dead. Cotopaxi mountain, Ecuador It was June 1877 and summer in the Sierra. The dry, Andean wind carried specks of ash that sprinkled down upon the sprawling haciendas and lush swaths of green pastures as hundreds of farm animals grazed at the foot of Cotopaxi, one of the worlds highest active volcanoes. Since the beginning of the year, the majestic snow capped summit, standing at more than 5,800 metres, had belched out small puffs of smoke and ash. In the capital, Quito, the churches were silent and the doors remained locked. It was an unusual time for the city. The interim head of the church had been forced into exile by the military dictator, General Ignacio de Veintemilla, who people suspected of murdering the Archbishop of Quito by lacing his chalice of wine with poison during the Good Friday prayers. Residents of Quito shunned and feared him. A year before, the general had ridden to power through a violent coup and a three-month civil war with forces loyal to the deposed president, Antonio Borrero. The streets of Quito were as turbulent as the skies above, which were slowly turning black and pouring a rain of ash. The last big eruption Then, on the morning of June 26, Cotopaxi convulsed. A major eruption shook the ground beneath it. Torrents of water, hot gas and rock poured down, destroying factories and farmland, villages and small towns. An avalanche of mud filled nearby rivers, bursting their banks. It took just over 30 minutes for the debris to reach the nearest town, Latacunga. Within 18 hours it had travelled west, reaching the Pacific coast. Although Quito was spared the devastation, it was shrouded in complete darkness and the entire city was coated in a fine layer of ash. The inhabitants of Quito were shocked to know that, besides the deaths produced by the clashes with the dictatorships army, many people had died because of the mud slides that covered the central area of Los Chillos Valley, where rich families had their haciendas, Gonzalo Ortiz, an Ecuadorian writer and historian, told Al Jazeera. Houses and workshops had been wiped [out] in a moment, animals drowned and were taken down by the flow. Two months later, the news of the eruption finally reached the Atlantic. It was estimated that at least 1,000 people had lost their lives and millions of dollars worth of property was gone forever. That was the last time Cotopaxi erupted on a significant scale. Cotopaxi rumbles again Then, 138 years later, in the early hours of a Friday morning last August, there were reports of five explosions and a plume of ash five kilometres long shooting into the air. Vulcanologists now believe an eruption is imminent, but they cannot be sure of the scale. The areas around the volcano have been designated as risk zones and the 90,000 people living in them are under yellow alert, preparing for the worst. Patricia Mothes is a volcanologist at Ecuadors Geophysics Institute in Quito. The Institute has been closely monitoring Cotopaxi. Volcanoes have an on and off process, she explained. The seismic activity here has been going on for about six months This is number six of the important eruptive periods from 1532 to now. It always ends in [a] major eruption. And while Mothes believes there could very well be an eruption, she is keen to stress that we will be warned about it. Inside the Cotopaxi danger zone As you wind down the lanes of the pan-American highway, amid the rolling swaths of farmland and undulating hills, Cotopaxi appears almost unobtrusive as it towers over the Ecuadorian countryside. The steady jet of steam and gas frothing from the ice-capped mouth of the volcano seem to melt into the clouds. Off the highway, a dirt road leads to Mulalo, a small farming town, 30km from Cotopaxi. A green street sign stands innocuously at the side of the road. Evacuacion Hacia towards evacuation it reads, pointing in the direction of Tanicuchi, 580 metres away, which the government has designated as gathering point in the event of an eruption. Large volcanic boulders lie by the side of the roads, a reminder of the devastation wrought by the volcano in 1877. Today, the town of 12,000 people resembles a ghost town. Tiny, bronze locks and a few stray dogs guard rows of small, abandoned houses with red flags fluttering at the top to signal that they fall within the risk zone. Around 4,000 people left Mulalo when Cotopaxi first spewed ash in August, and only about 40 percent of them have returned since. The town is quiet with just a few shops open and a school nearby where a handful of children still attend classes. Before August, there were 800 pupils studying here, but close to 200 of them have left along with their families for nearby towns. Dr Raul Amaya Perea and his daughter visit the town to conduct regular eye check-ups for the pupils. The basic problems for children that are caused by the Cotopaxi ash are allergies. Almost 80 percent of the kids here have conjunctivitis because of the ash, Perea said. Learning in the shadow of Cotopaxi Children wrapped in grey fleece overalls with the rainbow coloured motif of Ecuador emblazoned on their chests, play in a school compound that overlooks Cotopaxi in the distance. There are safe rooms for the children here in case of ash fall, but if an eruption is significant, teachers are supposed to escort the children to the nearest safe zone a 20-minute walk away from where their parents are expected to collect them before heading to designated safe zones, chosen based on the impact of previous eruptions. Government assurances and evacuation drills have done little to allay the fears of anxious teachers who say that they have been putting on a brave face and sticking to a routine for the sake of their students. We think we are prepared because the government has a plan, but this is only in theory, we will know what happens when it happens, said Narcisa Rivadeneira, the vice rector at the school. We still dont know where the rations will come from. There is no information. All the residents of Mulalo are supposed to go to Roselle but it is not [big] enough for all the people. More than upset, I am worried, Rivadeneira continued. Mario Rocha Niza, the head of the local government in Mulalo, indicates a small patch of concrete that is supposed to serve as a meeting point for thousands of families should the volcano erupt. If the volcano erupts, then God help us, he said. Right now theres [a] yellow alert but if theres [an] orange alert and if the eruption is big then people will be directed to go [to] the Pan American Highway, Niza explained. Cotopaxi has been emitting ash for more than seven months. Early warning systems of electronic sirens have been installed and volunteers have been provided with walkie talkies. They will be notified, by SMS or Whatsapp messages, by those monitoring the volcano if there is a change to the alert level. In the case of a red alert, the men have been made reponsible for going door to door to notify residents and sound the alarms. Simulation drills have been conducted in three provinces in the risk zone, with sirens sounded and announcements made in different languages. Portable water supplies, evacuation routes, education and health services were all part of the drill. A budget of more than $67m has been allocated for contingency measures in case of an eruption, the effects of which may be exacerbated by the El Nino weather pattern in the region as that places a further stress on existing resources. The elderly and the sick left behind At the southern foot of Cotopaxi there are dozens of small farming communities. These isolated homes are far from the evacuation zones. In San Ramon, locals say only 20 of the 150 families who lived there remain. Many are elderly and too frail to flee by themselves should the volcano erupt. Most hope that family members will be close enough by to take them to safety in such circumstances. Sixty-four-year-old Zoila Maria Toctahuano lives with her husband and a pack of dogs in a thatched hut propped up by thick boulders. Strong gusts of wind disburse flecks of ash across her land. A thin, surgical mask given to her by the local authorities isnt enough to stop them from reaching her lungs and making her ill. If theres an erruption, she and her husband will have to walk across isolated dirt tracks for a distance of 10km to reach the nearest evacuation zone. She says she was promised that government officials would come and rescue them. But, she added: Only God knows what will happen, we dont know anything. If the time comes, we will die, we cant leave the house alone. Economic casualties of Cotopaxi The foothills of the Cotopaxi mountain is a site of vast, gated, flower plantations. This is where Ecuador produces millions of fresh flowers to sell in international markets. The country is the worlds third-largest exporter of cut flowers, three-quarters of which are roses. Deco Flor is one of the largest plantations at Via San Augustin, producing 1.5 million rose buds of different colours every month. Many of those buds are exported abroad. READ MORE: Galapagos Islands volcano erupts in spectacular fashion After the first emission in August, thousands of roses were covered in ash, making them unfit for export. The plantation owners lost thousands of dollars. In Machachi, cattle owners saw a decrease in milk production when the ash destroyed acres of pasture in August. Some of them have been forced to sell and at times kill their cattle. The Ministry of Agriculture has now despatched mobile vet units in the affected regions and given out tonnes of cattle feed. Right now farmers are getting a preview of what might happen if and when there is a substantial explosion similar to those in the past, said Susan Poats, an anthropologist and director of Grupo Randi Randi, an Ecuadorian non-profit organisation that promotes sustainable development. If farmers must sell their cattle because they have nowhere to lodge them or feed for them, they often face greatly reduced prices because many others are trying to sell as well, Poats said. Some large farms have already moved their cattle to other areas, sometimes relying on relatives who farm outside the risk areas. Prepare, prepare, prepare Its a busy time for Ecuadors Secretariat of Management of Risks, the agency that oversees and informs the public about the governments contingency plans. Cotopaxi is South Americas most closely monitored volcano with scientists and volcanologists using a variety of cameras, sensors, instruments and seismic reading devices to detect any activity. When the levels of uncertainty are high, we have to prepare for the worst, said Maria del Pilar Cornejo, the former Secretary of Risk Management, who was preparing a contingency plan after the first signs of activity. For now, thousands of people are caught in a strange waiting game going from one drill to another, unsure when or if the sirens will go off for real. Priyanka Gupta reported from Ecuador on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project (IRP). Phnom Penh, Cambodia Srey Mao is leaving work. She flips a switch on her sewing machine. It makes an exhausted whirring noise as it powers down. She leaves her isolated workstation. Management moved her there to keep an eye on her. She even has to leave by a separate door. The sunlight hurts her tired eyes. Her old Nokia phone reads 7:10am in blocky text. They isolated me because Im brave enough to advocate for the same rights Western women have, she says. Srey Mao means dark-skinned woman in the Khmer language. It is an affectionate nickname in a country where dark skin is associated with traditional values and rural life. The other workers also call her mother, because, if they have a problem, she will put them in touch with the unions and address the management. As the world celebrated International Womens Day on March 8, Srey Mao, one of Cambodias 700,000 garment workers, was facing almost the same problems that the founders of International Womens Day confronted more than 100 years ago: scant wages, long hours and repression of unions. And while the situation for Western women has improved, the same problems persist in Cambodia and other countries in the developing world. Workers rights in New York International Womens Day has its roots in the grime and sweat of New York Citys garment industry in the early 1900s. About 80 percent of garment workers then were women, who laboured under terrible conditions. They worked for up to 75 hours a week and had to buy their own needles, thread and, in some cases, sewing machines. Many faced sexual harassment though the term wouldnt be coined for another 60 years. The day is sometimes thought to have been set up to commemorate a 15,000-woman walkout in New York in 1908, but this theory has been debunked by Renee Cote, an activist and writer. In reality, the idea of International Womens Day was first proposed in 1910, at the second International Socialist Womens Conference, held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference said it was following the example of the American socialist women, referring to a shirtwaist makers strike in New York the previous November, in which 20,000 workers staged a mass walk-out. The factory bosses thought that they would return as soon as the hunger and cold started to bite, but they were wrong. Im not surprised the bosses hope to starve [us] into submission, wrote Theresa Serber Malkiel, in her book Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker, published in 1910. They forget that it aint easy to starve these girls; theyre pretty trained hands at that job. The strike ended in February 1910 with all the workers demands being met. Workers rights in Cambodia I feel happy for them, but its not easy for us to do the same, said Louk Saven, a Cambodian garment worker, when told the story. My husband died and I have five children. I cant make their lives any harder. Her fellow garment worker Kong Sak concurred, saying, I couldnt last more than a month without pay. But Srey Mao disagreed, insisting: We have to advocate for ourselves. Many of the victories achieved by US shirtwaist strikers in 1910 have yet to be realised in Cambodia. Garment workers still work 70-hour weeks during peak season, and discrimination against union members is rampant. If they see any girl talk to me, they will fire her, said Srey Mao. Because they know I am a union member. Srey Mao has been fired twice, but both times union lawyers were able to have her reinstated. Sexual harrasment Despite their accomplishments, the New York women were not able at the time to win protection against unwanted advances from male colleagues and management. It was only in 1964 that this protection began to be legally recognised in the US, starting with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For Cambodian women, sexual harassment remains a major grievance. They will fire older women and recruit young girls because they want pretty girls to work in their factory, explained Louk Saven. Srey Mao nodded. She said she is 52 years old, but tells her employers she is just 37. The management makes pretty girl supervisors so they can get close to them, claimed Kong Sak. Often the girl is intimidated because she knows they will fire her if she disagrees [to sex]. In recent years, Cambodian garment workers have fought for a living wage of $160 a month. Under pressure from unions and buyers such as H&M, the Cambodian government raised the monthly minimum wage from $128 to $140 in January, falling short of the amount demanded by the unions. Louk Saven shook her head. My food costs alone are $150 per month, she said. I always skip dinner myself. The other women also said they were unable to afford to eat dinner. The Cambodian government has struggled to meet workers demands for a living wage while keeping the countrys multibillion-dollar garment industry competitive. Rival Vietnam has seen increased investment in its garment industry, thanks to free-trade agreements with major Western markets. Meanwhile, Bangladesh which also has a major garment industry has a minimum wage of only $68 a month. Although International Womens Day is a national holiday in Cambodia, many companies in the garment industry the countrys biggest employer of women are forcing workers to clock in as normal. They pressured us to sign a form changing our holiday from March 8 to an extra day at Khmer New Year, said Kong Sak. I think theyre worried about demonstrations. READ MORE: N Koreas multimillion-dollar museum in Cambodia He promises to make America great again, so why do Trump rallies seem to resemble a scene from Pink Floyds The Wall? I had anticipated Burlington, Vermont, would prove an interesting place to photograph my first Donald Trump rally. I wasnt wrong. Next door to the theater where the GOP front-runner was to speak, a deli advertises its The Donald sandwich-made of bologna and white bread, of course. Another storefronts sign reads: Trumps A Chump Feel The Bern. All of this is no surprise just a block down is Bernie Sanders national campaign headquarters. Sanders, the democratic socialist competing against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party primaries, was once a very popular mayor here. He still calls the quaint college town home. It was also no surprise that hundreds of anti-Trump demonstrators had amassed across the street from the candidates destination this evening, the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. I heard them chanting, Deport Trump! and, Dont give in to racist fear, refugees are welcome here. Meanwhile, those in line to see Trump countered with Build a Wall! and USA! USA! Anticipating the inevitable protesters that plague Trumps campaign, his staff began to let people enter the 1,400-seat venue but only after passing a loyalty test in which they had to profess support for the candidate. Im no Trump supporter but I did have a press badge, so after a Secret Service pat down, I got to join the rest of the news cameras at the back of the auditorium. Trump arrived at the lectern a half-hour late and, despite the fact that his campaign did its best to engineer a friendly crowd, it had still been infiltrated. Protesters revealed themselves every few minutes or so and were immediately escorted out. He takes the interruptions in stride, though, like a badge of honour: You know, its sort of fun. Isnt this more exciting? You go to a Hillary thing, and its like boring. By now the candidates supporters acted more like informers and seemed eager to be the first to spot the next imposter, shouting, Out! Out! One woman was dragged out screaming, I didnt do anything! The whole culture of the rally reminded me of that scene in Pink Floyds The Wall, when the rock star protagonist fantasises hes a dictator and his concert is a neo-Nazi rally; then his followers proceed to attack minorities. Also during his 70-minute talk, Trump addressed his poll numbers, his recent TIME magazine covers, and his now legendary promise to build a giant wall and make Mexico pay for it. He pivoted to accuse Sanders of wanting to raise taxes to 90 percent. And then, he ratcheted up his now-familiar vow to eliminate gun-free zones by shouting his pledge: I will get rid of gun-free zones on schools on my first day! He crested with his usual big finish, We are going to make America great again! Enemy territory or not, the crowd here roared its consent. We are going to make America great again! Nate Gowdy is a photographer covering the US election campaign. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. The ease of archaeological discoveries in the Middle East is exploited by black-market dealers, criminal gangs and ISIL. Last week, Ori, an Israeli boy, went on a field trip with friends to the archaeological site at Tel Rehov in the Jordan Valley. Wandering among the dust and the stones, he kicked away a small pebble and revealed a stone head half-buried in the ground it turned out to be a spectacular find, a small statue of a woman, her hair elaborately styled, that may be a devotional figurine of the fertility-goddess Astarte, more than 3,000 years old. Ori handed his discovery over to the authorities. This kind of surface find albeit an unusually fine example is not uncommon in the Middle East, where thin soils and intensive farming on land that has been tilled since antiquity regularly throw up archaeological artefacts of exquisite beauty and great value. In recent years, the ease with which such discoveries can be made has been exploited by rapacious black-market antiquity dealers, criminal gangs, terrorist organisations, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS), and by the poor people whose livelihoods have been shattered by war and political turmoil. Trade in illicit antiquities Looters can burrow relatively shallow holes into the ground, particularly at known ancient sites, where they can be rewarded with a handful of coins, a cylinder-seal, or a statuette. Satellite imagery, for example as recorded by Sarah Parcak, winner of the 2016 TED prize for her work in this field, shows sites in Syria and Iraq that were once marked out for future archaeological excavation now peppered with holes, more closely resembling the pock-marked surface of the Moon. ALSO READ: King Tut and the secrets of the hidden chambers The trade in illicit antiquities continues to thrive, with many pieces from ISIL-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq reaching the black market through trading posts in Lebanon and Turkey. Some artefacts are sold directly by ISILs directorate of natural resources, others by private individuals, on whom ISIL levies a tax. Still more pieces are probably being squirrelled away in caches, where they will sit until the gaze of international scrutiny starts to wander from the antiquities trade. Steps are being taken to combat the trade in illicit antiquities. The UN Security Council has passed a resolution banning the trade in antiquities from Syria, as has long been the case for Iraq. And, at a conference last week at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Giovanni Boccardi of UNESCO announced a new smartphone app that allows individuals to record data on heritage destruction. ISILs antiquities trafficking The United States government has extended the reach of its rewards for justice programme to information leading to the significant disruption in ISILs trafficking in antiquities. But smugglers and attempts to fight them are already a long way down the supply chain from the actual looting of antiquities. Nor is the calculus straightforward. What steps can be taken to address the desperate acts of looting committed by individuals who have lost everything in the wars in Syria and Iraq? by What steps can be taken to address the desperate acts of looting committed by individuals who have lost everything in the wars in Syria and Iraq, and for whom the sale of a few bronze coins, dug up in an empty field, will put food on the table? I have written previously about the need for community engagement in cultural heritage protection, whereby people living near to ancient sites are persuaded of the economic benefits of preserving a site intact, with all its antiquities left in place. But the immediate demands of the extreme privation suffered by many Syrians are likely to outweigh such long-term considerations. The antiquities looting crisis in the Middle East one aspect of the regions broader cultural heritage destruction disaster will probably persist at least until the wars in Syria and Iraq are brought to an end. It is a cruel irony that the richness of the cultural history of the region, and the relative ease with which material evidence of that past can be recovered, makes the Middle East a fertile land for antiquities looting. So bleak is the picture on the ground that we can do little more than hope that others will follow little Oris example, by holding on to any antiquities they find until they can be handed over to the authorities. George Richards is a senior fellow at Iraq Heritage specialising in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and has led a number of ethnographic field expeditions in the Middle East, including in Iraq and Syria, to protect and preserve the intangible cultural heritage. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. The opening of trade routes would encourage Central Asian nations to cooperate as economic stakeholders and not rivals. Prince Ali Seraj is the president of the National Coalition for Dialogue with the Tribes of Afghanistan. The Afghan government negotiators and a number of Taliban representatives are scheduled to sit across the negotiation table in Islamabad on Monday. Although an immediate agreement on peace is unlikely to be achieved, the meeting is considered to be a positive event after a bloody year and frostier than ever relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The increasing rate of terror attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan poses a significant threat to both nations and risks spilling over into neighbouring countries. To prevent wider regional instability, action must be taken now. The solution lies in fostering political, economic and social cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This cooperation must be based on mutual trust, respect and understanding. The cure for the troubled relations between the two country lies in their history. To achieve a mutually supportive commitment to face up to the security challenges, it is necessary to foment the political determination for resolving past differences and creating new narratives. At root, the most viable solution to the Central Asian security issue lies in ensuring significantly improved employment opportunities as the foundation to greater shared financial security. Where the general population feels direct benefits from improved conditions, it generates a sense of stake-holder ownership which ensures stability and a desire for continued improvement of the situation. ALSO READ: Afghan peace talks: Pakistans credibility on the line There are two major points of contention that are keeping Pakistan from reaching an agreement of non-intervention with Afghanistan: the enduring dispute over the Durand Line, and its conflict with India. Pakistan's perceived security fears have continued to withhold its military establishment from genuinely seeking a peaceful solution, even though President Ashraf Ghani has made several attempts to extend a hand of friendship to Pakistan. by Durand Line Concluded between Sir Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman Khan in 1893, the Durand Line Agreement delineated the spheres of influence of the Afghan government and the British Raj. It was, in effect, considered as a defence line between the two. The line was never meant to create a permanent border and by British law, had a 90-year validity. When Pakistan was created in 1947, the British violated the treaty and assigned the Afghan territory laying on the east side of the Durand Line to Pakistan. Afghanistan protested and presented its case to the League of Nations, but was outvoted and the line was accepted as a border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. To this day, every Afghan government, since the creation of Pakistan, has never accepted the line and considered the area to be part of the Afghan Pashtun tribal area and referred to it as Pashtunistan. This led to several border skirmishes between the two nations in the second half of the 20th century. Competition with India Pakistan considers India as its main enemy in the region and has grave concerns about the close relationship between Afghanistan and India. The Pakistani military believes that that relationship could open up a second front against Pakistan in the event of war. So, as part of what is referred to as strategic depth doctrine, Pakistan has been attempting to have influence over any government elected in Afghanistan. In short, Pakistans perceived security fears have continued to withhold its military establishment from genuinely seeking a peaceful solution, even though President Ashraf Ghani has made several attempts to extend a hand of friendship to Pakistan. With such a high degree of distrust between the two neighbours, it appears that short of Afghanistan forfeiting its sovereignty to Pakistan, the ISI, Pakistans spy agency, will not be satisfied with a political agreement. The purely security-oriented solution, therefore, will continue to face a deadlock. With the entire region now at a critical point, I believe that an alternative solution must be put on the table. That is achieving mutual confidence and mutual benefits through a regional economic scheme The Afghan president and other regional leaders have initiated a few regional economic cooperation plans. TAPI, the 1,814km Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is one such initiative. But, there is a need for a greater and more comprehensive regional economic grouping. ALSO READ: Gas pipeline runs through South Asias tensions The fast track to ensuring the right foundation is the creation of a Six by Six common market system embracing the regions six Islamic nations: Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. A Common Market System Within this winning alliance, Afghanistan would be a Free Trade Zone, reviving the Silk Route, through which all of its neighbours would benefit from the resulting trade traffic. The region should have soft borders and the railroad system from the neighbouring five nations should be extended into Afghanistan. To help trade opportunities, the populous living within this economic zone would be allowed to cross borders with agreed travel documents. A Central Asian Common Market would open the road to trade and commerce not only within the member countries, but for all of Asia and Europe. With soft borders, tensions over the Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan would reduce considerably and eventually become a non-issue. by It would create jobs in the tens of thousands. All goods heading East, West, North and South would be warehoused in Afghanistan and then shipped via rail, road or air to their respective destinations. Furthermore, it would reduce tensions between the West, Russia and China as they would be working together to ensure the security of the six Common Market Nations. With soft borders, tensions over the Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan would reduce considerably and eventually become a non-issue. With direct economic benefits to all of the six nations and the attention of bigger regional states to ensure trade security, terrorists would no longer have support within any member nation and so they will fade away. The TAPI pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan can be built without the destructive actions of the Taliban. So will the electric power lines from Tajikistan to Pakistan. The opening of trade routes and financial benefits to be reaped would allow Pakistan and India to cooperate as economic stakeholders and not rivals. For the United States and NATO states, the billions of dollars that is now being spent on war, could be diverted towards maintaining peace. ALSO READ: Afghanistan War must end but not at any cost Moreover, supporting a Central Asian Nations Common Market will eventually generate economic and security self-sufficiency, which will gradually reduce the flow of the American and European taxpayers money to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The current political stalemate and parallel increase in insecurity will not disappear just by continuing to insist on the same old, tried and failed formulas. A comprehensive regional common market such as the Six by Six concept, wholeheartedly supported by the international community, is a scheme worth trying. The time is right and ripe. Such a move would set a positive example for other nations suffering from war. Prince Ali Seraj is the president of the National Coalition for Dialogue with the Tribes of Afghanistan. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. First-of-its-kind decree comes after UN pressed to tackle rising problem of sexual abuse by peacekeepers. The United Nations Security Council has passed its first-ever resolution to tackle an escalating problem of sexual abuse by peacekeepers assigned to protect civilians in countries where there is conflict. The UN has been under pressure for months over allegations of child rape and other abuses by its troops, especially those based in Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It said there were 99 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by the so-called blue helmets in 2015, with an additional 25 allegations so far this year. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the resolution a significant step in our collective efforts to combat the terrible damage caused to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. Ban pledged to ensure protection and support for those who have been abused, his spokesman said on Saturday. The decree was approved by a vote of 14-0, with Egypt abstaining after a last-minute amendment it proposed, which would have weakened the text, was defeated. The US-drafted resolution endorses Bans plan for reform, including his decision to repatriate military or police units where there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse. WATCH: Are UN reforms enough to end sex abuse scandal It also asks Ban to replace contingents when allegations are not properly investigated, perpetrators are not held accountable or the secretary-general is not informed on the progress of investigations. The Egyptian amendment would have required that all three conditions are met before a military or police unit is sent home, not just one of them as now required. It is up to the home country of the soldier or police officer to conduct the investigation and determine the punishment if allegations of sexual abuse or exploitation are proven. Legally binding The resolution came after Washington, the biggest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, said it wanted the UNs most powerful body to send a strong signal that it will not tolerate the escalating problem. To the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, we pledge that we will do better, US Ambassador Samantha Power said after the vote. We will do better to ensure that the blue helmets that we send as your protectors will not become perpetrators, she added. More than 100,000 troops and police are currently active in UN peacekeeping operations. As part of the reforms, the UN has for the first time started naming the countries of alleged perpetrators, a move meant to pressure states to pursue allegations that, UN records show, they often have let slide. RELATED: UN: Lack of accountability drives sex abuse in CAR Ban has also pledged to speed up investigations and to make information available about outstanding allegations on a new website. Egypt, Russia and several other countries had argued that the council resolution would punish thousands of peacekeepers for the actions of a few. They say the issue should be addressed in the General Assembly instead. But General Assembly actions are not legally binding, while Security Council resolutions are. Today is a step in the right direction, Amnesty Internationals crisis response director Tirana Hassan said, but it will still require significant reform throughout the UN system. Ten-year-old killed in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip, hours after several rockets were launched into Israel. Fragments from a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft killed a 10-year-old Palestinian boy in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical officials said, hours after several rockets were launched into Israel. A statement by the Israeli military said aircraft had targeted four training camps belonging to Hamas after four missiles landed in open areas in southern Israel late on Friday. No casualties were reported from the rocket strikes. Residents of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip said Yassin Abu Khoussa died after missile debris hit his home, which is next to a training camp. His six-year-old sister was wounded, the medical officials added. The Gaza health ministry said Israel carried out five air raids on Hamas facilities. The boy was the first fatality from an air strike in Gaza since October. The Israeli army said that since the beginning of the year and including Fridays salvo, seven rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Gaza rocket fire has tapered off significantly since a 2014 war when more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and six Israeli civilians and 67 soldiers were killed. Pyongyang says ready to liberate South Korea as the South prepares for annual military drills with US forces. North Korea has said it is ready to pre-emptively attack and liberate South Korea in the latest attack on its arch-enemys annual joint military drills with the United States. In a statement reported by state media on Saturday, the General Staff of the Norths Korean Peoples Army (KPA) said its frontline units were prepared to strike first if they saw signs that any US and South Korean troops involved in the drills were attempting to invade. The KPA said it would counter the drills by the United States and South Korea with plans to liberate the whole of South Korea including Seoul and also that it was capable of executing ultra-precision blitzkrieg strikes. ANALYSIS: Breaking down North Koreas H-bomb test claim In response, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff called for North Korea to stop what it called threats and rash behavior and warned that any provocation would result in the destruction of its leadership. A pre-emptive large-scale strike by North Korea against the South is highly unlikely when that would almost certainly bring to an end the rule of leader Kim Jong Un given the likely military response of the US and South Korea. South Korea and the US say the drills, which this year are described as the biggest ever, are defensive and routine. The United States and South Korea remain technically at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce instead of a peace agreement. Six-year-old girl and her brother, 10, killed as Israeli air strikes hit Gaza after rocket fire on southern Israel. A six-year-old Palestinian girl and her 10-year-old brother were killed in the Gaza Strip by fragments from a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft, medical officials said. Debris from the explosion early on Saturday landed on the childrens home in Beit Lahiya. The girl, Israa Abu Khosa, died in hospital on Saturday afternoon having succumbed to critical injuries sustained during the attack, Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for Gazas Ministry of Health, told Al Jazeera. Her brother Yassin died earlier, and was the first fatality from an air strike in Gaza since October. Their brother, 13-year-old Ayoub Abu Khosa, sustained moderate injuries from the attack. The Israeli air strike took place hours after rockets were launched at southern Israel on Friday night, according to the Israeli military. No casualties were reported from the rocket strikes. The Gaza health ministry said Israel carried out five air raids on Hamas facilities. READ MORE: A harrowing walk to school for Palestinian children Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, vowed retaliation late on Saturday. A statement on its website said of the two killed children, their blood will not be shed in vain. Gaza rocket fire has tapered off significantly since a 2014 war when more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and six Israeli civilians and 67 soldiers were killed. Thousands rally against Fujimori after two of her rivals are banned from running in April 10 presidential elections. Thousands of Peruvians have taken to the streets of the capital Lima to call for Keiko Fujimori, the frontrunner in upcoming presidential elections, to be disqualified from the race over reports of electoral irregularities. In demonstrations on Friday, protesters said the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, the countrys former leader who is serving a 25-year prison term for corruption and human rights abuses, should be barred from candidacy in the April 10 election for allegedly violating a new law against vote-buying. Electoral authorities are investigating the accusations after photographs and video reportedly showed her and a running mate handing out gifts at rallies. Fujimori has denied the allegations and called them absurd. The electoral board has also been accused of wrongdoing and political bias, which it denies, after two candidates were dismissed from the race in an unprecedented move that drastically boosts Fujimoris chance of winning. The electoral body disqualified Julio Guzman, Fujimoris main rival, over a technical error in registering for candidacy, saying he failed to comply with electoral procedures. Guzman has called the move fraudulent and part of a corrupt system. Last week he failed to win an appeal against his exclusion from the race. Cezar Acuna, a fourth-place candidate, was barred from running after reportedly giving cash to poor voters while campaigning. Stop Keiko Protesters chanted Stop Keiko! as they marched through the centre of the countrys capital and demonstrated outside the headquarters of the National Elections Council. People are rising up to say enough of these irregularities and the Fujimori ambition of returning to power, said Jorge Rodriguez, an organiser of a group called Fujimori Never Again. Fujimori, who narrowly lost her first presidential bid in 2011, has long been the favorite for this years race. She inherited a solid stock of support from her father, whom many credit with ending a 20-year-long conflict with rebels and fixing the countrys economy in the 1990s. But many Peruvians oppose her for her links to her fathers authoritarian government, even after she has softened her once staunch defence of him. Alberto Fujimoris convictions included ordering a death squad to commit a massacre that resulted in the deaths of 25 people in 1992. His administration also forced more than 200,000 women and thousands of men to be sterlised as part of programme seeking to lower birth rates and stimulate the economy. US secretary of state says violence has receded by 80 to 90 percent and that talks should continue despite violations. US Secretary of State John Kerry said violence in Syria had reduced by 80 to 90 percent since a UN-sponsored ceasefire came into effect, adding that peace talks should go ahead despite truce violations. Speaking from Riyadh on Saturday after meeting with his Saudi counterpart, Kerry said Russian and US monitors would meet in Amman and Geneva later on Saturday to try to further stem the fighting in Syria. By all accounts [violence] has been reduced by 80 to 90 percent, which is very, very significant. And what we want to do is continue to work to reduce these, Kerry said. Kerry also said he planned to request a call with his Russian opposite number, Sergei Lavrov. Weve made it very, very clear that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad cannot use this [Geneva peace] process as a way to exploit the situation, when others are trying in good faith to abide by it. And there is a limit to the patience with respect to that, he added. Syrias main opposition bloc, the Higher Negotiations Committee, said it would attend the peace talks in the Swiss capital, which are scheduled for Monday, but accused Assad of preparing to escalate the war to strengthen his negotiating position. WATCH: Has the world betrayed Syria? Since the ceasefire started on February 27, the government and its opponents have traded tit-for-tat accusations of breaches. Rebel groups say government forces and their Russian allies have continued to target areas where neither the al-Nusra Front nor the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) are present. ISIL and al-Nusra were not party to the ceasefire, and military operations against them have continued. The UN has said that it and its partners have sent 536 trucks filled with aid to nearly 240,000 people, and that relief supplies have reached 18 besieged areas since the ceasefire began. The war, now in its sixth year, has killed more than 250,000 people and forced millions from the country. Protesters in the besieged Eastern Ghouta say there will be no silence until they achieve regime change. Eastern Ghouta, Syria Among the hundreds of people who poured into the streets of the Syrian village of Saqba on Friday afternoon was Abu Amer, a civil defence worker who says he is determined to see the Assad regime fall. Im out today in my official civil defence uniform, and I am fighting with everyone here for our freedom and to call for the toppling of the regime, Abu Amer told Al Jazeera, noting that, like many of those marching on Friday, he felt a sense of responsibility to support the cause until the end. I do not want my kids to learn that it's acceptable to remain silent. They should fight for their freedoms. by Abu Ahmed, protester in Saqba Through the nature of my work, I have seen a lot of the difficulties people in Ghouta have faced first-hand. I have witnessed the destruction of these villages by the regimes air strikes. I have pulled children out from under the rubble with my own hands, Abu Amer said. Thats why Im here now: I have made a promise to avenge every innocent child Ive pulled out from under the rubble. Two weeks into Syrias ceasefire, protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have resumed in a number of towns and cities throughout the country, including Saqba, located in the besieged Eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus. INTERACTIVE: Whats left of Syria? The Eastern Ghouta has been under siege since 2013, leaving tens of thousands of people trapped inside an active war zone. Demonstrators called their protest the Renewal of the Pledge a reference to their determination to topple Assad, which was at the heart of the 2011 uprising that spiralled into a five-year civil war. The war has killed more than 250,000 Syrians and displaced millions more. Protesters also cited a lack of faith in the ceasefire, which they said was being violated daily in the Eastern Ghouta region. With sparse food and medical supplies coming into the area, many called for a complete lifting of the siege and an opening of the roads leading to Damascus, which have been closed off by checkpoints since the start of the siege. Abu Ahmed, a Saqba resident who participated in Fridays protest, says he has suffered a great deal both from the siege and from his individual persecution by the regime. He told Al Jazeera that he had been detained twice, and only released from the Adra prison after his family paid out six million Syrian pounds ($27,000). Opposition refutes the Syrian governments red line of not discussing ousting of president in upcoming Geneva talks. The Syrian government has rejected the UN envoys call for elections to be held in the next 18 months, adding that the issue of the presidency remained a red line ahead of fragile peace talks in Geneva on Monday. Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria, told Russias RIA Novosti state news agency on Friday that one of the main topics at the negotiations would be the implementation of UN-monitored presidential elections within 18 months. Yet, Walid al-Muallem, the Syrian foreign minister, said on Saturday that the government delegation would reject any attempt to include presidential elections on the agenda. Neither he [de Mistura] nor anyone else, whoever they may be, has the right to discuss presidential elections. This right is exclusively for the Syrian people, Muallem told a news conference in Damascus. UPFRONT: Has the world betrayed Syria? He added that the government delegation to the talks will wait no more than 24 hours for the opposing side to arrive. We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency Bashar al-Assad is a red line and is the property of the Syrian people, Muallem said. The main opposition bloc, the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC), has repeatedly called for Assads departure at the start of any transitional period. If they continue with this approach, there is no reason for them to come to Geneva, Muallem said. Assad should go Yet, Mozner Akbik, a representative with the Syrian opposition, told Al Jazeera that Assad has to leave as part of the political transition. The Geneva communique and various UN Security Council resolutions call for a genuine political transition of power in Syria. If this does not happen, the Syrian problem cannot be solved, Akbik, a member of the Syrian National Coalition, said from Cairo. This means that Assad has to go. If Assad does not go, I dont think the war will end. Key negotiations Both the government and the HNC have agreed to participate in the fresh round of indirect talks in Geneva. The last round of UN-mediated talks in the Swiss city collapsed in February. At the time, the HNC delegation arrived in Switzerland around 36 hours after the government, but waited another two days to head to the UN headquarters. READ MORE: Kerry says fighting in Syria has drastically reduced The Syrian oppositions Akbik told Al Jazeera there was no reason to doubt that the opposition would contribute to the talks. The opposition always participated and seriously engaged in Geneva talks twice. And this is what we will do this time as well, he said. UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said the talks would cover the formation of a new government, a fresh constitution, and UN-monitored presidential and parliamentary elections within 18 months. He also said that the possibility of federalism had not been taken off the table. All Syrians have rejected the division [of Syria] and federalism can be discussed at the negotiations, de Mistura told Al Jazeera. However, Foreign Minister Muallem said a federal division of Syria was not an option, adding that the negotiations would aim to form a unity government which would then appoint a committee to either write a new constitution or amend the current one. Then we will have a referendum for the Syrian people to decide on it, he said. Fighting across parts of Syria has decreased after the regime and rebels agreed to a landmark ceasefire brokered by Washington and Moscow, but both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violations. Some 50,000 demonstrate in Warsaw as government refuses to publish constitutional court ruling abolishing the new laws. Thousands of opposition supporters have taken to the streets of Polands capital Warsaw in the latest round of a constitutional row that has put the government on a collision course with the countrys top court. After sweeping to power last October, Polands conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party enacted a law increasing the number of judges at the constitutional court required to make rulings and changing the order in which cases are heard. The court, however, has said the new rules are illegal, effectively putting the changes in limbo. READ MORE: EU probes Poland over media and court reforms An estimated 50,000 anti-government supporters rallied on Saturday in front of the court and then marched across Warsaw to the presidential palace. Poles used to demonstrate to change the state. Today they demonstrate to preserve it, Ryszard Petru, head of the liberal-conservative party Nowoczesna, told the crowd of protesters. The demonstrations, also held in the cities of Poznan and Wroclaw, came as the government refused to publish a ruling by the constitutional court abolishing the new laws. We uphold the position that Polands government cannot publish the statement of some of the constitutional court judges, which is not based on law, government spokesman Rafal Bochenek told reporters on Saturday. READ MORE: How Polands conservatism is playing home and abroad On Friday, experts from Europes leading human rights watchdog said the legal reforms would undermine democracy, human rights and the rule of law. But the government has argued the constitutional court is too powerful, allied to the last administration and determined to block reforms the party was elected to push through charges dismissed by the court and rights groups. The crisis, which has caused concern in the European Union and the United States, appears to be the most serious since Poland threw off communism in 1989. The government, however, denies that democracy is threatened. Democracy is fine, very fine, Beata Kempa, a leading official in the government of Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, said recently. We dont send police with bullets against people. They are allowed to express their views here. Top two government officials ask state employees and citizens to contribute to a fund in support of security forces. Tunisias leaders have called for civil servants and the general public to donate part of their income to an anti-terrorism fund, following a deadly assault on a town near the Libyan border. Tunisian President Caid Essebsi made the appeal on Saturday as he showed up at a post office in the capital Tunis to offer a donation to a newly-created fund to raise money for the cause. READ MORE: Tunisia why foreign fighters abandon ISIL He donated one month of his salary, Tunisias state news agency TAP reported. The president also urged Tunisians at home and abroad to make donations in support of military and security institutions well as the national efforts to combat terrorism, according to the agency. In a separate statement on the same day, Prime Minister Habib Essid invited members of government and high-ranking state officials to donate a days work to the fund. The prime minister asked state employees and citizens to support the national effort in the fight against the plague of terrorism. Security forces attacked On Monday, fighters launched a wave of attacks on army and police posts in the border town of Ben Guerdane in southeast Tunisia. The assault and ensuing clashes around the town have killed 49 fighters, 13 members of the security forces and seven civilians, according to the AFP news agency. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attacks, but the authorities have blamed them on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group present in neighbouring Libya. READ MORE: A revolution besieged by ISIL ISIL has taken advantage of a power vacuum in Libya since the NATO-backed overthrow of President Moammar Gaddafi in 2011 and set up bases in several areas, including near Sabratha close to the Tunisian border. Tunisia has built a 200km barrier that stretches about half the length of its border in an attempt to stop fighter incursions from Libya. Last year, ISIL claimed three bomb and shooting attacks in Tunisia, killing dozens of foreign tourists and presidential guards. Hundreds of healthcare facilities in the war-torn country have been rendered nonfunctional, as casualty numbers rise. Doha As the war in Yemen nears its first anniversary, the state of healthcare in the country has never been more precarious, doctors say. More than 6,000 people, about half of whom were civilians, have been killed since the start of Saudi-led coalition air strikes against Houthi rebels in March 2015, according to the United Nations. More than 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, while the World Health Organization has warned that Yemens healthcare system is on the brink of collapse. Tariq Noman, a cardiovascular surgeon based in Yemen who spoke at the Yemen Humanitarian Crisis Conference in Qatar last month, said that the current situation is disastrous. Houthi militias have been attacking hospitals, ambulances and medical staff directly. Hospitals in Taiz have come under shelling from Houthis almost on a daily basis, Noman told Al Jazeera. But what can we do? We have to go to work and do our job. READ MORE: Newborns dying amid siege of Yemeni city Noman said that his job entails treating patients with multiple bullet wounds, broken bones and vascular injuries. We receive every type of trauma injury you could imagine, and we try our best to save as many lives as we can and minimise disabilities with basic resources and depleting medical supplies We have treated some [Houthis] who had been caught by the resistance forces. We dont discriminate, as our work is humanitarian. There are thousands of children going unvaccinated, terminally ill patients not being able to receive regular treatments, and pregnant women missing out on crucial check-ups. by Pranav Shetty, health coordinator with the International Medical Corps Noman, who set up a field hospital to treat injured protesters during Yemens 2011 uprising, noted that health services in Yemen were never up to the standard due to chronic neglect by the regime of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh but the war has made matters dramatically worse. Since last February, Noman has been working at a government hospital in Taiz, which has been under siege by Houthi rebels. According to the UN, 600 health facilities have been deemed nonfunctional due to conflict-related damages or shortages of staff and supplies. Delivery of healthcare in the country has become more challenging than ever before, Pranav Shetty, a health coordinator with the International Medical Corps, told Al Jazeera. We have been trying to deliver supplies in places like Taiz and Aden, but the unpredictable nature of the conflict has been a major hurdle for all aid agencies and international organisations operating in Yemen, Shetty said, noting that the process of negotiations with the different groups controlling various areas of the country presents a logistical nightmare for aid workers. Even when aid supplies make it in to besieged areas like Taiz, Shetty said, they do not always reach the intended recipients or they arrive too late, after critical medicines have expired. Hospitals also lack the necessary equipment to operate on the growing number of wounded, with 27,000 people reported injured in Yemen since October 2015. The biggest surgery in a normal situation is nothing compared to war trauma, which means that a person can have injuries in the chest, abdomen, bones, all at the same time, Noman said. Facilities like properly functioning labs, ICUs, dialysis units are either missing or in a dilapidated state. READ MORE: Starvation in Yemen We are hoping just to survive To cope with the increasing needs, hospital staff have trained local volunteers and medical students in basic emergency response. When doctors receive monetary donations, they share the funds with the volunteers. Everybody is poor in Yemen. They dont have food. We try to help them with food and rations, Noman said. Nobody is eating well in Yemen. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, while around 14 million Yemenis are in need of access to healthcare, patient consultations at the countrys health facilities have decreased by approximately 20 percent since the conflict began. The long-term effects of the war will only start to become prominent after the conflict ends, Shetty said. There are thousands of children going unvaccinated, terminally ill patients not being able to receive regular treatments, and pregnant women missing out on crucial check-ups, he said. All of this will add up and become a burden on Yemens already weakened healthcare system. Follow Hafsa on Twitter: @hafsa_adil The partial lifting of the siege in Taiz will pave the way for delivery of much needed aid. It was almost a year ago now, that Saudi Arabia launched Operation Decisive Storm. An air campaign meant to quickly overthrow Houthi rebels who had taken control of Yemens capital Sanaa. That operation became an Arab coalition, then ground troops joined the fight as well. Few thought Houthi rebels would be able to hold on to power this long. But the coalition is now making gains. It has largely ended the Houthis nine-month siege of Taiz Yemens third largest city. Yemeni officials say that government troops have almost taken back the city entirely and they can now deliver aid to about 200,000 residents. But what is the strategic value of Taiz? And how will this advance affect talks being held between Saudi officials and Houthi leaders? Presenter: Sami Zeidan Guests: Hisham Jaber Retired Lebanese army general and strategic analyst Mohammed Jumeh Writer for Al Quds Al Arabi and political analyst Adam Baron Visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations We explore the governments clampdown on critical media; plus, we talk to Can Dundar, a journalist released from jail. In the latest crackdown on Turkeys media, authorities this week raided and seized control of the largest daily newspaper: Zaman, its sister publication, Todays Zaman, and the Cihan news agency. The takeover, which was backed by the countrys courts, was the latest blow in a long-running and deeply personal saga between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen. Gulen, a 74-year-old Islamic leader based in the US, has been a vocal critic and political opponent of Erdogan and is closely affiliated with the anti-Erdogan Zaman newspaper. Erdogan has repeatedly accused Gulen of trying to overthrow the government, but Gulen has denied the allegations. The crackdown comes at an already worrying time for press freedom with several media outlets in Turkey also being targeted. Last year, two editors from the Cumhuriyet newspaper were accused of treason over their story which alleged that Turkey was arming rebel fighters in Syria. When the countrys highest court ordered their release from jail, Erdogan announced that he would not respect the ruling, setting the stage for a showdown between the government, the courts and the media. Talking us through the story are: Sevgi Akarcesme, editor-in-chief of Todays Zaman; Banu Guven, a TV anchor for IMC; Jane Kandur, a columnist with Daily Saba; and Asli Tunc, a professor at Istanbul Bilgi University. Other media stories on our radar this week: Hassan Hanafi, once a respected broadcaster in Somalia was sentenced to death for colluding with al-Shabab in the murder of six fellow journalists; the Thai government has dropped a legal case against a photojournalist who was arrested last year for carrying a flak jacket and a helmet through the airport in Bangkok; and in the US, the Washington Post has been criticised over its coverage of Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. On President Erdogans radar: An interview with Can Dundar Ten months ago, Turkeys Cumhuriyet newspaper published a story about Turkish intelligence trucks allegedly carrying weapons to rebels in Syria. The story didnt go down well with the government and Can Dundar, the Cumhuriyets editor-in-chief and his Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul, were charged with espionage, revealing classified information and membership in a terrorist organisation. The two men spent three months in prison before a Constitutional Court ruling set them free however the president has made it clear that the case is not closed. The Listening Posts Richard Gizbert talks to journalist Can Dundar about the Turkish governments steamrolling of the press, the reporting that landed him in jail, and why he is still on President Erdogans radar. Recipe videos tend to go viral so Red Sky studios, a post-production company based in Alabama, adopted the same approach for their video about film production. Its called Recipe for disaster and shows whats needed to bake your epic film. The difficulty level is very hard. The cooking time is months, sometimes years or forever. And yes, their video did go viral. UN special envoy de Mistura discusses the possibility of a federal Syria and why there is no plan B if peace talks fail. Its been five years since pro-democracy protests started challenging the rule of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. After years of ongoing bloodshed and multiple failed attempts to resolve the conflict, no one is counting the dead anymore, but it is estimated that the Syrian crisis has killed 300,000 people and displaced millions. Ahead of the resumption of peace talks in Geneva on March 14, Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy to Syria, says there is a higher chance than ever of achieving a political solution. We by Staffan , no one would never have imagined this conflict would have gone there, but perhaps now we have a chance to try to put an end to it.] Five years [ago], no one would have ever imagined this conflict would have gone there. But perhaps now we have a chance to try and put an end to it, says de Mistura. Diplomatic efforts to end the crisis started early on with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan being appointed special envoy to Syria in 2011, but Annan as well as his successor, veteran diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, failed to bring peace to Syria. The Italian-Swedish diplomat de Mistura managed to bring all the key international and regional players, including for the first time Iran, back to the negotiating table. We do have something that both Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi, who tried very hard and could not have at that moment: some unity at the Security Council, he says. With some parties calling for a federal structure for Syria which would grant broad autonomy to regional authorities, while maintaining the countrys unity as a single state de Mistura explains why in his opinion partition is not an option for the war-torn nation: The unity of a country is fundamental, he says. The last thing that Syria would need and can afford, is a partition: small states, one controlled by a group, sponsored by another, would be unsustainable. I think no Syrian person, whoever he or she is, would accept that. They are very proud people of their own country. Fighting in Syria has slowed considerably since a fragile cessation of hostilities agreement brokered by the US and Russia came into force almost two weeks ago. But there have been violations of the truce. The issue is whether incidents exist or not. But the reality is whether the incident is contained, de Mistura says. Whether the incident becomes an impediment and breaks down the ceasefire. And so far, the cessation of hostilities as we call [it], so far they have been succeeding in controlling it. Neither the Syrian opposition nor the Syrian government have confirmed whether they will attend the peace talks. But de Mistura says that the talks need to take place. They [the Syrian people] are expecting the parties to talk seriously about what the future of Syria can look like. He believes that there is no plan B if the peace negotiations fail. The plan B, as far as we can see, is just a continuation of a horrible conflict which will go on and on and on. And you know who will be the only victims? The Syrian people. And I dont think there is a real plan B except for pushing hard for this to go on into a successful outcome of a political solution according to the Geneva Communique. So, as the bloody conflict enters its sixth year, what are the prospects for peace for Syria? And after so many failed attempts, what does it take to end the ongoing violence? Al Jazeeras James Bays talks to Staffan de Mistura about his challenging mission to bring peace to Syria. You can talk to Al Jazeera too. Join our Twitter conversation as we talk to world leaders and alternative voices shaping our times. You can also share your views and keep up to date with our latest interviews on Facebook. This solid release furthers the evidence that Held's trio (with bassist Robert Landfermann and percussionist Jonas Burgwinkel) continues to set lofty goals, and proves again the group is quite capable of splendid results.After achieving success with a project like their collaboration with, some performers might have taken a pause simply to collect the accolades or follow up with a similar, market-proven formula.Demonstrating once again they are indeed unique, the musicians took more of a chance, releasing an album comprised entirely of classically based ballads. Therein lay the risk, as an enterprise of relatively subdued selections may not whet every consumer's appetite.Conversely though, anyone who appreciates subtle sequencing or inflective/reflective pedal chords should find this album especially worthwhile listening. If ballads are a preference, then this is a delight, featuring excellent themes for contemplation or romance."Offertoire" evolves gradually, rolling into a lush soundscape before breaking into a multi-bossa nova type groove that proves the trio can play straight ahead jazz anytime they wish.Abstract timing is an obvious specialty of drummer Jonas Burgwinkel, who shines across the cymbals and light rims on "Prelude No 3," even managing to achieve the difficult, often misplayed task of non-abrasive scratching that aligns appropriately.Classical music is a gold mine for jazz improvisation. On "Feuillet D'Album Op. 58" by Alexander Seriabin, Held plays a supporting role as Landfermann's upright establishes the primary tonal presence. While the original's compositional form and orchestration deserves precedence, the trio's adaptation holds up just fine. This is not a case of comparing apples to oranges. More like diamonds to gold.For the "Mountain Horn Song" from Bela Bartok's Romanian folk collection, Held transposed portions of an original, 'A' pedal point melody into F minor, Bb major and Db major chord connections, then included his personal touch with his contrasting coda tribute toIt's Held's turn to take the lead again under twinkling starlight keys on "Agnus Dei" by Igor Stravinsky. In an album full of good ballads, this cut is probably the strongest. Perfect for candlelight."Interludium No 5" builds on the type of intricate, abstract patterns the trio is becoming well known for. A lyrical sense of optimism, perhaps the most crucial part of many enduring ballads, makes this tune a personal favorite. Going down the street, away from someone you love, in a Mexican sunset rain.Just as this disc's subtle sequences flow cohesively, the finale's title track from Tosca, which translates to "hidden harmony," seamlessly segues right back into the opener.Overall, Recondita Armonia is another excellent release from Pirouet Records, one of Germany's most interesting, independent jazz labels. As usual, the product is high quality in everything from production to packaging.While a few tracks along more contemporary melodic charts might have made this disc more marketable, that would have defeated the point. Either way, restraint is often a virtue, and this record includes many powerful moments. AR's Editor Joe Shea Talks About Elections On Iranian TV Bear Stearns Saved By Fed As Lehman Bros. Falters; Major Bank Failure Looms Over Wall Street, Sends Markets Into 200-Pt. Dive Lie Upon Lie Five Years Into the Iraq War The Administration Still Churns Out Lies by Randolph Holhut A Small Tragedy Even at 90, As Friends Turn Cool She Knows the Show Must Go On by Joyce Marcel I'll Take Me Imagine John Wayne or Arnold In Heels, Silk and a Girdle by Elizabeth Andrews Sen. Nelson Calls For New Fla. Primary; Gov Crist Backs 'Do-Over' Who'll Win? Ask Spock Spock.com Engine Predicts Winners By Site Searches; It Can be Wrong by Jay Bhatti Chatting Up The Cat God Gave Me Dominion Over Him But I Think He's a Non-Believer by Constance Daley Death of a Thug The Life and Horrors of Suharto by Andreas Harsono ___________________________ This Just In Sierra Club: McCain Ducked All 15 Key Votes On Green Laws (AR) A Work By AR's T.S. Kerrigan Is Chosen As 'Best Poem' By Wordpress Site Murder At Mile 63 The Deadly Assault and Bush Administration Cover-Up by S. Eben Kirkesby and Andreas Harsono 5427 14th St. West, Bradenton, FL 34207 $6.99 Fish Fridays! Manatee Co.'s Only 24-Hr. FREE Wi-Fi Paid Advertisement On Native Ground AFTER 5 YEARS, WE'RE STILL LIED TO ABOUT IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Next week is the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And it is likely that sometime in the next couple of weeks, the 4,000th American soldier will die in Iraq. [MORE] Momentum OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - It's 1931, and a 14-year-old girl is standing alone on a stage. She's small and lively with dark curly hair, widespread hazel eyes, slender wrists and an open, eager face filled with the wonder of performing. Her name is Rose, and one day she will be my mother. But now she is performing an Eugene O'Neill monologue called "Before Breakfast" for a ladies' club in a wealthy suburb of Long Island. [MORE] One Woman's World COMFORTABLE WITH MYSELF by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I'm not sure but I think I may be socially incorrect. [MORE] On Native Ground ENOUGH FOR A WAR, NOT FOR A PEOPLE by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Last week, the National Governors Assn. met in Washington, D.C. One of the tasks the NGA had on its agenda was to ask President Bush to increase federal spending on roads, bridges and other public works projects as a way to stimulate the economy. He rejected their pleas out of hand, claiming that infrastructure projects wouldn't offer any short-term economic boost. [MORE] Brasch Words BEWARE THE SELF-REVERENTIAL PRESS by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Shortly before the primary votes this past week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter called Sen. Barack Obama's surge to the Democratic nomination "inevitable." It also called for Hillary Clinton to "start her campaign for Senate majority leader." [MORE] Constance A CONVERSATION WITH MY CAT Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Normally, when the cat starts his evening rant of meowing continuously until he makes his point, I just take it as long as I can, pick him up, and put him in the garage for the night. He doesn't want to go, but the meowing stops and I don't care if he likes it or not. [MORE] Momentum OUT OF STRUGGLE, ART by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Here we are again at the crossroads of art and social change, having the opportunity to watch good and great films about the lives of women in support of the Women's Crisis Center. [MORE] Campaign 2008 HOW TO PREDICT SUPER TUESDAY II WINNERS? ONLINE SEARCH by Jay Bhatti NEW YORK, March 4, 2008, 7:00PM ET -- With the outcomes of the Texas, Vermont, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries to be decided tonight, how possible is it that online searching can predict who will win tonight's primaries? [MORE] One Woman's World DON'T VOTE; IT ENCOURAGES THEM by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Call me angry and disgusted but don't call me un-American because I won't be voting come November. [MORE] On Native Ground BUSH AND THE KEYBOARD COMMANDOS by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- As the days tick down toward the eventual departure of President George W. Bush from the White House, it's a hopeful sign that most Americans are no longer moved by his Administration's constant exploitation of terrorism for political gain. [MORE] Momentum WHICH AMERICA DO YOU LIVE IN? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- It's a little confusing. [MORE] Make My Dat THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] On Native Ground FIDEL RETIRES: NOW THE COLD WAR IS REALLY OVER by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Maybe now, we can finally say the Cold War is over. [MORE] Make My Dat THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] One Woman's World POLITICS IS NO PARTY by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Are you having a hard time focusing your eyes? Do you have faint red spots all over your body? Is there a ringing in your ears and do you see wavy lines when you look at your television set? Do your hands shake when you try to hold a cup of coffee? And have you recently been forgetting what day of the week it is - or what year? [MORE] Make My Day FOR BETTER OR WORSE ... A LOT WORSE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- "Marriage: It's Only Going to Get Worse." [MORE] Constance YOU CALL THESE RIGHTS? by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- When you express an opinion you hope to persuade others to your point of view. It doesn't always happen but still, opinion writers try. [MORE] Momentum THE BRIDGE WOMAN by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - Out there in America - yes, still - is a generation of women who were born in the 1940s, raised in the 1950s, and who came to radical consciousness in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I am one of them. Hillary Clinton is one of them. [MORE] On Native Ground OBAMA AND MY GENERATION by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- I originally planned on voting for Dennis Kucinich in the Vermont Primary on March 4. [MORE] The Willies: WARNING: THIS MEDICATION MAY MURDER YOUR FRIENDS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla. -- You've heard the warnings, haven't you? Stop Prozac and you may take a shotgun, an Uzi or an AK-47 and mow down your family and friends, or even a whole classroom full of your fellow students. You didn't? Well, that warning is not on the bottle, but like countless mass-murder incidents before it, Friday's shootings at Northern Illinois University, as well as the Virginia Tech shootings that killed 32 last year, was probably precipitated by the effect of stopping medications that suppress anger and other powerful emotions but do not relieve the underlying cause. Isn't it time we started warning people - or stopped prescribing these medicines? [MORE] One Woman's World DON'T KNOCK ON MY DOOR by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I wish I could feel delight in my poet's mansion being like Grand Central Station all the time, but I can't. And I wish my place was such a place that someone would one day write: "Her door was always open and she always made you feel all fuzzy and warm in her presence. She could make a cup of coffee seem like a banquet." [MORE] Reporting: Panama PANAMA'S VIOLENT LABOR UNREST INTENSIFIES Mark Scheinbaum PANAMA CITY, Panama, Feb, 15, 2008 -- After just one day of relative calm, wildcat construction strikes by some members of Panama's largest union flared up again Friday morning, four days after a police sniper shot one worker. More than 140 demonstrators have been injured and at least 500 arrested, authorities say. [MORE] Brasch Words TO STIMULATE ECONOMY, BUY A CHINESE-MADE U.S. FLAG by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Walking down Main Street, pushing a grocery cart loaded with clothes, toys, and appliances was Marshbaum. Fastened to the right front corner of the cart was an American flag tied onto a three-foot ruler. [MORE] Make My Day THE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- To commemorate the death of noted shark exploder Roy Scheider, and the "Jaws" movies that resulted in Erik never setting foot in the ocean again, we are reprinting this column from 2003. Shark Experts 0, Sharks 1 [MORE] Momentum THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - As I write this, it's raining ice. Maybe a half a foot of snow and ice has already landed up here in the woods of Dummerston. Our cars are encased in it, and the door to the house is blocked. The satellite dish that brings in our Internet service quit about 20 minutes ago - frozen solid. [MORE] The Willies AMERICA TO HILLARY: GET OUT! by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 13, 2008 -- Sen. Hillary Clinton has adopted the Rudy Giuliani strategy, and it's working - for Sen. Barack Obama. It turns out to be the strategy all Democrats are seeking - an exit strategy. But it's not for Iraq. It's for her exit from the race for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. [MORE] Constance CONFESSIONS OF A DISAPPOINTED VOTER by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- A week ago at just about this time, I completed an article and was about to submit it as scheduled to The American Reporter. I was feeling rather elated, ready to show up on Super Tuesday morning, firmly touch the X next to Rudy Giuliani's name and get on with my day. He was my choice; he would get my vote. [MORE] Reporting: Florida SIERRA CLUB SET TO SUSPEND FLA. CHAPTER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 10, 2008 -- The national Sierra Club is set to suspend its Florida chapter after years of divisive infighting, the president of the national club told Florida members in a letter delivered to some this weekend. It is the first time in its 116-year history that such a step has been considered by the club, according to news reports. [MORE] One Woman's World PLANT A NEW WORLD THIS SPRING by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- For a little while, the men will just have to toss and turn in their fear-free-women beds. For a small space of time Hillary Clinton will just have to trudge on toward the White House without my faint applause in the background. [MORE] On Native Ground VERMONT AND THE 5 STAGES OF CONSERVATIVE GRIEF by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- First, Vermont tried to convince the nation to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. [MORE] Make My Day REBEL WITHOUT A TONGUE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Kids' brains work in amazing ways. At times, they can grasp complex concepts and make impressive discoveries. Other times, you have to wonder how we ever survived as a species. [MORE] The Willies FOR DEMOCRATS, NOW IT'S ABOUT RACE, INCOME AND GENDER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Feb. 6, 2008 -- It's not a good time to be a Democrat. As the Super Tuesday results demonstrated, the presidential race between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has divided the partly along clear racial, income and gender lines - the very distinctions the party has sought to erase in principle but has emphasized in its pursuit of diversity. [MORE] Momentum SUPER TUESDAY BLUES by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Super Tuesday has come and gone and I still can't get excited about the upcoming presidential elections. [MORE] The Willies ON THE BRINK OF HISTORY, YOUR PUSH IS NEEDED by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 5. 2008 -- I'm expecting a sea change tonight. I believe that for the first time in this nation's history we will once and forever banish racism as the deciding factor in the destiny of African-Americans, and indeed adopt diversity as our path to the future. [MORE] Campaign 2008 AT 88, EVERY VOTE REALLY COUNTS by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 5, 2008 -- Pearl Turner will caucus for Mitt Romney tonight in Denver. [MORE] One Woman's World STAND BY YOUR WOMAN by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- The black vote. The gay vote. The fundamentalist vote. The Hispanic vote. [MORE] An AR Special SUSPECTS IN BENAZIR ASSASSINATION HAVE TIES TO MUSHARRAF by Ahmar Mustikhan WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Gordon Brown this past Monday feted coup-leader-turned-President Pervez Musharraf at 10 Downing Street, Britain's new prime minister probably didn't ask the Pakistani dictator a question that is now on many minds: Did you order the murder of Benazir Bhutto? [MORE] Momentum TO THE VERMONT DELEGATION: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR US LATELY? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. Back when President George W. Bush and Dick Vice President Dick Cheney were building up to their loathsome war in Iraq, very few people were brave enough to call the bullies' bluff. [MORE] On Native Ground IF BUSH HAS HIS WAY, WE'LL NEVER LEAVE IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. - In his final State of the Union address on Jan. 28, President Bush cautioned against accelerating U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, saying that it would endanger the process that has been made over the past year. [MORE] Campaign 2008 CLASH OF COMMENTS AND PROTESTORS AT CLINTON, OBAMA RALLIES IN DENVER by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 1, 2008 -- At least four presidential campaigns of both partiers rolled into in Denver this week ahead of the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries in 22 states, but it was the Democratic presidential contenders who drew the big crowds and duked it out Wednesday. If sheer numbers are any indication, Sen. Barack Obama - preceded by a buoyant and beautiful Caroline Kennedy - won the round handily. He is the overwhelming favorite to win the Colorado primary next Tuesday. [MORE] The Willies WHY THE FLORIDA PRIMARY STINKS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Jan. 30, 2008 -- I was with my wife and daughter driving the back way from Miami home to Bradenton when we stopped at a McDonald's in Clewiston, the only big town along the vast shore of Lake Okeechobee, the state's precious freshwater reservoir. The McDonald's had three televisions at a central seating area, each tuned to a different network, and our table was in front of CNN as the very first election results started to pour in around 7:30PM. With them, almost as counterpoint, suddenly came such an overwhelming odor of cow plop that my wife started to throw up as we all ran to the parking lot. [MORE] Passings: Suharto DEATH OF A KEMUSU THUG by Andreas Harsono JAKARTA - A few minutes after hearing that former president Suharto had died in his hospital bed, Marco, a militia leader in downtown Jakarta, raced to Suhartos house, wearing his jungle camouflage and began guarding the Suhartos residence on Cendana Street. [MORE] Constance I REMEMBER YOU by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga.. -- It seems to be more often lately that the sentiment is spoken but it's always been out there: "You never get over the death of your child." This is true. But the heartfelt expressions come from some who cannot fathom the notion of losing a child; their own child is who is in their mind, not another mother's child. [MORE] News Story not available This story has been published on: 2022-10-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is no longer available on our site. Citigroup is seeking help from outsiders to develop apps that will work with the so-called "Internet of things" and wearable technologies. Internet of things which refers to home appliances or other gadgets that connect to the Internet and communicate with other devices is a nascent tech category that is expected to transform companies. It promises "to help unleash a new era of banking through hardware," Citi said. Citi's fintech challenge is part of a trend in which a handful of banks have been soliciting external developers to tell them what to do next in digital. Banks are just as interested in getting digital banking ideas from someone in a college dorm as they are from an engineer working for a billion-dollar corporation. The idea is to speed up development for an industry getting disrupted, and help banks shed their stodgy images. "Innovation can no longer be just internal," said Stessa Cohen, research director at Gartner. Citi will make available a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) to individuals around the world selected to participate, and invite them to create apps for mobile devices, the Internet of things and wearable apps. An internal team from Citi will select applicants who can code while a panel of judges will determine who participates on one of three demo days. The innovation initiatives underscore what banking execs have publicly stated: They are struggling to keep up with customers' digital demands at a time when the industry is getting disrupted on payments and other fronts while consumers are using branches less. And the call to coders coincides with Apple's announcement of its new mobile payment platform, Apple Pay. Citi is one of the tech company's initial partners. Apple also unveiled Apple Watch earlier in September. The smart watch will not be for sale until 2015 but is expected to help make wearable technology more common. The tech brand's product news could spark wearable app ideas with Citi's participating developers in addition to serving as a catalyst for broad consumer adoption of smart watches. "We are lucky with the timing," said Heather Cox, Citi's chief client-experience, digital and marketing officer for global consumer banking. Citi is preparing for when people expect an experience that is deeper than downloading an app and viewing data presented on a flat screen, Cox said. Such services "won't quench [consumers'] desires in the future," Cox said. "Banking needs to be more exciting." In fact, Cox would like to see a day where banking engages someone so that when he wakes up, he checks in with his bank app the way he might already with a Fitbit. "Money matters in people's lives," she said. "Wearables will create a new kind of demand that can be fueled by biometrics think even safer payment mechanisms with multi-layer bio-authentication as the security layer." Crowdsourcing tech ideas is but one of the more recent methods banks are using to help inform their innovation pipelines. American Express will test out ideas drafted by academics that would work with Serve, its prepaid account-opening platform. First National Bank of Omaha hosted its second hackathon in a bid to uncover talent to hire. Eastern Bank in Boston, which launched an innovation lab earlier this year, invites fintech enthusiasts to pitch the bank on ways to improve banking. And Westpac in Australia, which ran a crowdsourcing challenge in 2013, is rolling out one of the winning ideas that came from (literally) a rocket scientist and involves augmented reality. Mary Monahan, executive vice president and research director of mobile at Javelin Research & Strategy, expects banks to use hackathons for a long time to come to try to keep pace with shifting consumer behavior. "They have to reinvent themselves," Monahan said. "If banks can't fulfill consumers' digital needs, they will go elsewhere. Geography won't matter as much." A hackathon, meanwhile, could help a bank discover coders while they are free thinkers, untainted by corporate employment. "Sometimes it's easier to innovate when you don't know the rules," said Monahan. "Once you know all the problems, it's harder to go outside the box." Citi's new challenge, for example, is an extension of a contest it had been running internally and follows a successful event it ran in Latin America last year. The contest had more than 150 participants from 19 countries. The latest event, dubbed Citi Mobile Challenge, is meant to also serve as "a fun way to stir the pot and generate good ideas," Cox said. To rethink digital banking apps, selected developers will be able to access a limited set of Citi's APIs more details will become available on Oct. 10 to create apps and have a shot at cash prizes, a potential contract with the bank, face time with banking execs, and mentorship possibilities following the challenge. Participants will retain intellectual property rights for their software codes; however, Citi will have the option to license the software. Citi partnered with numerous companies on the upcoming challenge, including Intuit, Plug & Play, Wearable World, FinTech Innovation Lab, Endeavor, Yellow Pepper, Women 2.0, Gimbal, Empire Startups, UK Trade & Investment and Fintech Hackathon. The bank, which is preparing to launch one of the winning technologies from its Latin America contest, hopes the investment becomes a regular part of the bank's mix of efforts to find innovative idea. It also has an innovation lab and a ventures unit. "There is no silver bullet in this world of innovation," Cox said. "We don't know where the digital world is heading." It is no secret that millennials are supporting the perceived anti-establishment candidates Donald Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left. Being a millennial myself, I have had several discussions with my politically engaged friends about why our generation is attracted to these candidates. In regards to Sanders, I feel that some in our generation believe he is trustworthy, albeit as trustworthy as you think a socialist can be, and see him as a man who has been "fightin' the good fight." I believe that our generation is more prone to seeing socialism in an academic light due to portrayals of different socialist theories that are vastly different from the historic realities of socialism. In the majority of colleges and universities, socialist theories are taught as if their implementation would lead to some sort of fantastical utopia (and free college), which is precisely opposite the lessons history has taught (some of) us. As for Trump, discussion has led my friends and me to realize that throughout our lives, we have always heard about Mr. Trump's success and subsequent wealth. So many in our generation hope to achieve only a fraction of his success. Several millennials feel as if the jobs and money are lacking, although the bills and student loan debt are insurmountable. Thus, it is perhaps understandable that millennial voters would support a candidate who has the money and success they can only dream of. These voters believe that Mr. Trump can lead America down a path of success, wealth, and whatever else Mr. trump has promised. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump has put forth limited details and plans with questionable substance, which makes me question his ability to lead the country. Do voters think Mr. Trump would build one of his hotels without a detailed plan? Obviously, he would not; the lack of a plan would never happen in the business world. Then why should it happen in America? I am a millennial. I was born in 1991. I have caucused for Ted Cruz in Iowa. I urge millennials to vote for Mr. Cruz. I believe he is the most qualified candidate to lead our country forward in these chaotic times. Before becoming a senator, Mr. Cruz clerked on the Supreme Court for Justice Rehnquist and was the solicitor general for Texas. While these positions may not seem to be necessary for a future president, as a lawyer myself, I argue that these roles are important because they shaped and honed Mr. Cruz's respect for the Constitution and separation of powers. Currently, we have a commander in chief who does not respect the Constitution and goes beyond the bounds of his authority. Mr. Cruz has been a great defender of the Constitution and has stood against overreach by the Executive Branch. He has done so on several occasions and in front of the United States Supreme Court. Millennials should value these credentials if they hope to preserve the land of the free. Without separation of powers and defense of the Constitution, freedoms that we millennials value will be degraded. I believe that Mr. Cruz has the best demeanor and personal characteristics to lead the country. Mr. Cruz is a principled man who defines and then stands for what he believes in. If you recall, Mr. Cruz used his position as solicitor general to battle for conservative reforms. Since being elected to the United States Senate, Mr. Cruz has remained true to conservative causes by standing up against Obamacare and urging members of Congress to use the power of the purse to dissuade illegal executive actions, specifically illegal amnesty. Mr. Cruz has been repeatedly criticized by Republican senators, who have not always held true to what they have promised their own constituents. Mr. Cruz has stood up to these leaders; best remembered is the time he accused Sen. McConnell of lying on the Senate floor. If millennials are looking for a leader who will do what he has promised, they should turn to Mr. Cruz, who knows exactly where he stands and does not participate in demagoguery, mockery, or bullying. We need a nominee who is strong in his beliefs and does not flip-flop. All of Mr. Cruz's political beliefs align with mine when it comes to limited government and regulatory reform. Mr. Cruz has a detailed plan regarding the elimination of government agencies. Mr. Cruz also plans to "appoint private-sector leaders to serve on a commission that, as President Reagan put it, would 'work like blood hounds' to improve government efficiency." Through reduction of government waste and regulatory reform, we really can make America more prosperous. When we are less beholden to the federal government and our businesses are less burdened by cumbersome regulations, the economy will grow. Millennials should be in favor of Mr. Cruz's plans, as his plans will help create jobs that millennials so desperately need. If any demographic group should care about the future, should it not be the millennials? The bottom line is that Mr. Cruz has a plan, says what he means, and is a true conservative. Mr. Trump does not have a plan, does not always say what he means, and is a questionable conservative. Millennials, we have the total package in front of us! Let us not turn our backs on Mr. Cruz just because he is not a prototypical image of success like Mr. Trump. Mr. Cruz is also successful, in his own right, as one of the great conservative legal minds. Ellen Young is a lawyer invested in taking down big government through commonsense reforms. Thanks to Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialism, by which he means a cornucopia of state-supplied benefits paid for by squeezing billionaires, is now all the rage. And according to Bernie and his fans, this vision is hardly Utopian -- generous womb-to-tomb entitlements work just fine in Scandinavia. Predictably, the clamor for DS stresses the free stuff -- free education, including college, single-payer comprehensive medical care, universal state-funded daycare, subsidized housing, and countless other free or nearly free goodies. Unfortunately, little is said about price tags and, even more importantly, total silence surrounds whether an arrangement that thrives in Norway can similarly flourish in the U.S. It is assumed that people and their values are world-wide interchangeable so if all Norwegians suddenly departed and Somali immigrants replaced them, Norways democratic socialism would scarcely miss a beat. Absolute nonsense -- and if that were true, Democratic Socialism would be universal, even in dirt-poor sub-Saharan Africa. Begin by acknowledging the obvious -- successful Democratic Socialism requires mountains of tax revenue to finance all the handouts. Absent sufficient income, everything is empty rhetoric. Put colloquially, Democratic Socialism requires flocks of Golden Geese, all happy to lay ample golden eggs. In practice, this means large numbers of profit-making, taxpaying businesses. Absent these, the economy is just a giant Ponzi scheme where government extracts money from one welfare recipient to bestow it on to another. This need for generating wealth is easily forgotten when fantasizing about all the forthcoming free stuff. Nor do fans of Democratic Socialism appreciate that an angry goose can hide its eggs from egg collectors or fly to friendlier climates if squeezed too hard. Those feeling the Bern may not realize it, but Scandinavia is a hotbed of big-time capitalism. According to the Forbes 2000, a rating of the worlds largest companies, multi-billion dollar revenue firms include Stavanger (an oil and gas giant), Nordea (banking), A P Mller-Maersk (shipping), Volvo, SKF, Nokia and many, many more. These big cash-generating firms, in turn, need thousands of skilled employees who dutifully show up, properly perform their jobs, and otherwise allow these private sector firms to earn the profits financing all the free stuff. Think of it this way: would Volvo stay in Sweden, let alone be able to pay the taxes if their workforce were a bunch of illiterates baffled by cutting edge robotic technology? Would any quality-conscience consumer own a Volvo if manufactured by incompetents? The citizen-related demands of successful Democratic Socialism further requires that people not torture the Golden Goose for more than it can produce. Tradeoffs are always necessary so generosity in one area requires frugality elsewhere. Consider financing a free a university education. Yes, higher education in Scandinavia is generously government subsidized but this is financially feasible since overall educational costs elsewhere are kept under control. Envisage Swedish bureaucrats trying to fund low-tuition universities when millions and millions of krona must be allocated to disastrous K-12 schools with their armies of school police and electronic security, additional staff to manage out-of-control disruptive students, specialists in remedial education to teach basics a second or third time, scores of experts to develop new ways to uplift chronic strugglers, millions for school repair that results from vandalism and similar money-consuming obligations. Democratic Socialism also only flourishes where people gladly pay for their government services. It's hard to imagine Democratic Socialism in a nation of tax cheats. Then there are those little bills that make civil society possible: water and electricity bills, promptly paid parking fines to avoid costly court proceedings, paying for public transportation and keeping up with property taxes. Further add not overburdening government with poor civic habits: airmailing garbage out the window, littering parks with empty beer bottles or otherwise forcing government to add unnecessary employees. Similarly essential is restraint at the public trough. Free quality medical care cannot survive a population that converts every injury into an ambulance ride to the emergency room. Similarly bad personal habits s can quickly bankrupt free medical care. Try sustaining socialized medicine where a population eats itself into obesity causing diabetes and heart attacks, slides into narcotics addition, practices dangerous sex, smokes and drinks to excesses and otherwise burdens the state with self-imposed tribulations? Better yet for keeping the goose healthy is for citizens themselves to shoulder burdens that would otherwise deplete state coffers, for example, volunteering to help senior citizens. Democratic Socialism is also closely linked to immigration policy though Bernies supporters almost never acknowledge it. Admitting millions of low-skilled immigrants will inevitably boost government welfare spending and, to repeat yet one more time, the already harassed goose may decide that enough is enough and fly to low-tax Ireland. In the final analysis, open porous borders and ample social welfare benefits are incompatible unless the government keeps printing increasingly worthless paper money. Ironically, the election of the anti-immigration Donald Trump may be more helpful in sustaining Democratic Socialism than his open borders rivals. Lurking underneath this explanation of why Democratic Socialization may only selectively flourish is the politically awkward issue of crime. Rampant criminality is incompatible with the prosperity vital to generous government-financed entitlements. Capitalist enterprises whose taxes pay the freebies bill will almost never remain in crime-ridden areas unless relocation is impossible (as in extractive industries such as mining) or are heavily subsidized to prevent mass unemployment. Few employees want to risk their lives when commuting or send their children to dangerous schools. It is no accident that crime-prone cities like East St. Louis, Missouri, or Selma, Alabama have little industry or commerce. Consider how much more money Washington could spend on our nations health care if the cost of fighting crime fell sharply? And the billions saved by hospitals not having to treat gunshot wounds or drug overdoses? All and all, though it is never publicly acknowledged, an ironic relationship exists between a successful Scandinavian social welfare system and pre-existing wealth and an orderly, peaceful citizenry. In a nutshell, it would be far easier to bring Democratic Socialism to an already prosperous San Francisco than financially struggling Detroit, though residents of the latter would benefit far more than the well-healed San Franciscans. The reason is simple: San Francisco is already wealthy and could easily make a few minor adjustments (e.g., limiting the poor population) that could finance Bernies socialist dream. Turning Detroit into Stockholm, by contrast would require hundreds of billions in new taxes, all on top of the hundreds of billions already spent there, and every nickel would come from beyond the citys borders. Democratic Socialism is wonderful after the creation of massive wealth (Sweden was rich long before it instituted the social welfare state). By contrast, poor cities or nations will only exacerbate their poverty by trying to squeeze an already emaciated, sickly goose barely able to lay one or two golden eggs a month. What Bernie and his followers are really demanding is a massive redistribution of wealth: robbing the wealth-generating Peters of San Francisco to bestow freebies on the unproductive Pauls of Detroit with no guarantee that Detroit would be the next Stockholm. It is hard to visualize a more Quixotic crusade. Lofty rhetoric aside, feeling the Bern is far closer to communist redistributive economics than some idyllic Scandinavian fantasy. At this moment the people and politicians of Britain are involved in the complicated, controversial debate over the advantages and disadvantages of remaining in or exiting from the European Union. The decision has now become even more complicated as a result of proposals made by Turkey being considered by the EU on the stemming of illegal immigration into the EU countries. Everyone in the EU agrees that bold moves to solve the migrant problem are necessary and urgent. The flow of irregular migrants along the Western Balkans route has not ended, but has only been reduced by the tightening of borders by Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and of course Macedonia, which has completely closed its border to illegal migrants. Curiously, the European Commission is urging countries to remove their internal border controls as soon as possible with a target of November 2016 so that the passport-free Schengen zone arrangements can be saved. Already, eight countries have imposed fences and border checks in order to stem the wave of migrants, and also the entry of possible terrorists. The EU considers the Schengen zone, one of free movement from Iceland to Greece, but excludes the UK and Ireland, as one of the Unions crowning achievements. The flow of migrants from Turkey to Greece remains too high and needs to be reduced. In January and February 2016 more than 131,000 people, of whom 122,000 landed in Greece, crossed the Mediterranean. Illegal migration must be discouraged, human smuggling routes must be ended, and legal immigration should occur in a disciplined fashion. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council and former Polish prime minister, in Athens on March 3, 2016 urged potential migrants not to come to Europe, not to risk their lives and money. On March 7, 2016 at a meeting in Brussels, the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, proposed a plan to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Dutch Prime Minister for his country to take back all irregular migrants not in need of international protection who entered Europe from Turkey. In response, the EU would accept Syrian refugees going from Turkey into the EU. What is Turkey up to and what are its real motives? The country is confronted with and involved in a host of problems: with Russia, with the Syrian regime of President Assad, with the increasingly assertive Kurds in its territory, and with ISIS. It is subject to criticism for is abysmal human rights record, for refusing to recognize the state of Cyprus and the Greek-Cypriot government in Cyprus, one third of which is occupied by Turkey. Perhaps Turkey is seeking a comfort zone by conversations with Israel about restoring full diplomatic ties. After many years of friendship and military cooperation between the two countries, relations deteriorated following the Operation Cast Lead war in Gaza of 2008-9 and then especially after the Mavi Marmara incident on May 31, 2010. As recently as July 20, 2014, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan 2014 accused Israel of barbarism that surpassed even Hitlers, and supported Hamas, which has an office in Istanbul. With the potentially large wave of migrants into Europe the EU needs Turkey to help control the tide. But the Turkish draft plan of March 7, 2016, a tentative deal, comes at an economic and political price for the EU, and mixes two separate issues, one is the dire humanitarian problem of millions of would be migrants and refugees, and the other is the specific benefits that Turkey will gain, above all membership of EU. A fair question is whether the price is worth paying or whether Turkey is engaging in economic and above all political blackmail. In the November 29, 2015 deal, the EU agreed to provide 3 billion euros in return for Turkey agreeing to host the 2.6 million Syrian refugees currently in the country. It also agreed that if Turkey would prevent migrants going into Europe the EU would revive consideration of Turkeys stalled application for membership of the EU. In March 2016, Turkey is demanding the funding it should obtain be doubled to 6 billion euros. Turkey has confronted the EU with a double and interrelated problem because of the Turkish demand for EU membership and also for visa-free access to the Schengen passport-free zone for its 77 million citizens. The EU countries, troubled by Islamist terrorism in recent years, are aware that almost all of the 77 million are Muslims and are wary of possible infiltration of terrorists from Turkey. Almost certainly, an agreement on membership will increase support for right-wing political parties in most of the European countries. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is particularly aware of political difficulties. In 2015 she borrowed a phrase, Wir Schaffen das (yes, we can) for an open-door policy to allow an influx of 1.1 million into Germany in 2015. A year later, in March 2016, faced with opponents in the elections for regional parliaments in three states, she acknowledges this policy was mistaken. This was a necessary political admission because the election has become a litmus test on her disputed policy since the refugee crisis has become the main issue on the agenda, though in effect it is only indirectly related to regional state problems. Since April 1987, Turkey has been applying for membership, first of the EEC (European Economic Community) and then the EU. It was officially recognized as a candidate for membership in December 1999 and negotiations were begun in October 2005. European countries have always been divided on its membership. It is not simply the problem of the large number of Muslims. After all, Europe has been open to the Islamic world, and millions of Muslims are now living in European countries. Turkey is not a European country -- precisely 97 per cent of its area is in Asia. It would have the largest population of any of the EU countries. With its violations of human rights and censorship of press and public opinion, it cannot be considered a democratic country. Its president, Erdogan, has become increasingly authoritarian. Moreover, Turkey wants to achieve EU membership by a number of accession agreements. The problem for it is that Cyprus and other countries are not prepared to negotiate unless Turkey recognizes the Cyprus government in Nicosia. It is difficult for the EU to deal with the tidal wave that is expected to increase during the spring and summer of 2016. It is proposing to provide 700 million euros over the next three years to help refugees in the Western Balkans. It has to change rules concerning asylum. The present Dublin system means asylum seekers have to lodge their claim in the first country they enter. The proposed reform is to relocate refugees around the EU in relation to wealth and size. NATO entered the picture on February 11, 2016 as a fleet of 5 ships began trying to help coast guard officials deter the smuggling boats. NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg announced on March 6, 2016 a new deal for ships to go beyond international waters into Aegean Greek and Turkish waters to support efforts to locate and deter migrant boats. The EU, while relying on its own efforts to deal with the crisis, should examine carefully the proposed arrangement with Turkey, and consider whether it will help alleviate the migrant crisis or simply benefit Turkey. Britain in particular must now evaluate the new proposal in its decision on relations with the EU. She was never very beautiful. Thats for sure. In 2004, Donald Trump made this statement about Nancy Reagan. She was 82 at the time. These days, the news, radio, and internet echo and echo back again a roaring cacophony of such Trumpisms. It seems media attention ensnared the presidential candidate long ago, and he enjoys, especially as of late, creating controversy to capture the disdain of the American populace with little regard of whether its by representation or opposition. This week, however, the country paused for just a second to recognize the death and life of First Lady Nancy Reagan. For just a moment, amid the anger and hostility of todays pop culture, our airways and search engines offered a quiet breathe of nostalgia. Pictures of the famous gaze the First Lady shared with the President reminded us that true love exists. No words quite express the palpable joy of when their eyes locked and their lips opened to an uncontrolled smile. Theres weight to such genuine emotion. It transcends our ordinary confines of the physical world, and its always very beautiful. For this love only grows from the recognition of dignity in another human being and not from the attraction that stems only from exterior appearances. Allow, for a moment, such pictures of the First Lady to remind you or transport you to a more pleasant time in our culture. Not a simpler time, not an easier time, not a less dangerous time -- but undeniably a time when the voice of optimism spoke louder than that of anger and the appreciation of the beauty in every human life expanded popular approval. On September 21, 1980, the League of Women Voters held a presidential debate in Baltimore, Maryland. President Ronald Reagan, then a mere former governor, stood on the debate stage and in a rebuttal to his opponents pro-abortion response retorted, I think all of us should have a respect for innocent life. With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, theres one individual whos not being considered at all. Thats the one who is being aborted. And Ive noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born. In 1980, the willingness to protect human life gave voters confidence that if the president valued the most vulnerable, he would protect us all. Against conventional political tides, the former governor beat the incumbent President Carter on November 4, 1980. And in 1983, President Reagan became the first sitting president to author a book while in office, Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation. President Reagan exemplified what it means to be a Pro-life president by championing moral fortitude and encouraging the American people to value our fellow man, from our common beginning in the womb to our inevitable death. With this thought, though, the noises of the present day get louder. And the torrid political landscape with its bombastic degradations and humiliations spewed from the mouth of Donald Trump cant be ignored. On March 15th, voters in Florida, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, and Illinois will cast their ballots in the Republican primary. One important question to consider before voting, does this candidate embody the Pro-Life leadership of Ronald Reagan? The ready degradation of others does not elicit confidence in voters that the candidate will exercise strong leadership recognizing the beauty in all human life at all stages. But what is even more telling, is what Donald Trump praises -- the phenomenal judicial tenure of his sister and the wonderful work of Planned Parenthood. Both praises insult the intelligence of Pro-Life voters. Donald Trump praises his sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, as a phenomenal judge and recently even touted that she would be great on the United States Supreme Court. But in 2000, his sister ruled in favor of the legalization of partial birth abortion. In her opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Farmer, this phenomenal judge writes about how dismembering and disarticulating fetuses during all stages of pregnancy, even when that means severing or deflating a babys head, should be legal. This phenomenal judge writes how she supports a womans right to deliver a baby into her vagina, but then kill the fetus before the baby fully enters the outside world. This phenomenal judge writes that even when the life of the fetus is terminated when a substantial portion has passed through the cervix and is in the vaginal canal, this does not transform the abortion into infanticide. This phenomenal judge writes about how she is unpersuaded that ethical, philosophical, and moral issues should sway her legal analysis. Being Pro-Life, we know that a fetus is a baby deserving of all the dignity given those already born. The dismemberment of a babys body, deflation of a babys head, and the murder of a baby moments before birth all ravage human dignity, to say the least. Would a truly Pro-Life leader describe this judge as phenomenal or does this display a characteristic disregard for humanity? Donald Trump unapologetically proclaims that Planned Parenthood does wonderful things for womens health. These wonderful things remain mostly undefined by the candidate, but I opine this is not reference to the vending of infant body parts captured on video by the Center for Medical Progress, the testimony of how the organization misleads and lies to women by its former employee Abby Johnson, or the claims that Planned Parenthood does not even conduct mammograms. While the candidate supports the wonderful things Planned Parenthood does, Donald Trump asserts that he would not fund the abortion part. But we know that money, by its very nature, is fungible. Currently, the Hyde Amendment already forbids the direct federal funding of abortion, but reports estimate that Planned Parenthood receives $528.4 million each year in public funding. It is far-fetched in the extreme to believe that the abortion industry giant does not benefit from this funding in all respects, even if indirectly. Would a truly Pro-Life leader extol Planned Parenthood and forward this position? When casting your ballot on March 15th, silence the noise and the banter, and remember these words uttered by a real Pro-Life leader: There is no cause more important than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings. Voting Pro-Life always has been, and always will be, very beautiful. Thats for sure. Does Paul Ryan have any clue that we, the voters, are outraged and enraged? That we are very, very angry? That we feel betrayed by our party, patronized by our party leaders, and helpless because the alternative is so much worse? And where stands our suicidal party? I received an email dated 8 March from Paul Ryan titled "**Urgent** Survey." One paragraph from the letter reads: As Speaker of the House, I am depending on folks like you to provide me with the feedback needed to guide our Republican House Majority I want to be certain that our agenda and political platform address the pressing needs of the American people. The survey is found here. It has nine questions. The first seven are offensive no-brainers. The eighth asks, "Do you approve of the job Speaker Paul Ryan is doing in Congress?" Options are "Yes," "No," and "Not sure." I initially answered "Not sure." The ninth question asks, "What should be the top priority for our House Republican Majority?" There are eight specific buttons with a ninth button of "Not sure" and a tenth of "Other," with room for a very short (105 characters) response. The first of the eight specific buttons is "Keep taxes low." Are they kidding or stupid? Is this a Democrat list? "Keep taxes low" is a clarion call to maintain the status quo. The status quo is why we are so incensed. The status quo means anemic growth of one or two percent. It means stagnant wages and increasing poverty. It means a slow drift into socialism. Why not short-circuit the process and simply elect Bernie? "Keep taxes low" assumes that taxes are low. Taxes are not low; they are much too high, and they are stifling the economy. Taxes need to be cut. The tax code needs to be redone from scratch (three pages is a good goal hat tip: Carly Fiorina). Inequities and loopholes need to be eliminated. Second button, "Repeal job-destroying regulations," sure. Third button, "Defend the Right to Life," absolutely. Fourth button, "Border security," necessary but far from sufficient. We need strong security particularly along our southern border. A yuge wall, I don't care who pays for it, would be a good start. Given the wall and the proper personnel and technology to go along with it, we will be able to reduce to a trickle the flow of illegal immigrants and the flow of smuggled goods, particularly the heroin that is so dreadfully prevalent today. Once the border is secure, we can address the rest of the immigration problems. We need to review and restructure our overall immigration system. We should re-examine our legal immigration criteria with the goal of increasing the number of skilled applicants granted entry. In addition, we need to be able to screen out applicants who are unable or unwilling to adapt to our laws and customs. For example, in an appearance on Fox, Dr. Ben Carson said: A Muslim who believes in all the tenets of Islam, including Sharia, would have a very difficult time embracing our Constitution and our values because they're at odds with each other. This leads to what is termed voluntary apartheid, and that has occurred in European countries such as France, Britain, and Sweden. Americans glory in our shared cultures based on the Judeo-Christian values epitomized by The Golden Rule. We welcome others to join us, and we expect, indeed demand, that they respect and share our values. This is not a religious test; it is a cultural test. Americans are willing to make accommodations for the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free," but not to the extent of abandoning our heritage and our culture. Fifth button, "Cut federal spending" OK, and wave the flag and honor motherhood. How about some specific spending cut goals with a commitment for a balanced budget and actual reduction (not just a reduction in the rate of growth) in the federal debt supported by a realistic schedule? Sixth button, "Investigate corruption," ho-hum. Seventh option, "Stop Obamacare," deja vu all over again. How has this worked out for us so far? Do you mean to repeal Obamacare? If so, show us the alternative and the cost analysis. Do you mean to improve the existing law? If so, tell us how and show the cost analysis. Eighth button, "New energy policies." Are we advocating Republican Solyndras? Do we plan to eliminate coal and shrink-wrap West Virginia? Maybe we'll turn Nevada into a solar panel? Or perhaps turn Wyoming into a wind farm? Dare I mention Barack Obama as secretary of energy? The Democrats are replete with "new energy policies" that threaten the economy, and we Republicans need to differentiate ourselves from them. We need energy independence, and this in turn requires at least short-term acceptance of fossil fuels. And then there are the selections Mr. Ryan doesn't offer us. NBC News ran a piece on the issues of most importance to voters. Republicans list Terrorism (34%), Jobs and the Economy (26%), Immigration (13%), and Health Care (10%). Democrats list Jobs and the Economy (29%), Health Care (17%), the Environment (15%), and Education (13%). Very significant differences. Mr. Ryan's priorities ignore Terrorism and Jobs and the Economy and provide only partial definitions of both the Immigration and Health Care issues. To defeat terrorism, we must first and foremost acknowledge that global jihad represents an existential threat to the United States. We must call it by name: radical Islamist terrorism. We can unilaterally beat ISIS on the battlefield, but any resulting peace will be short-lived. A lasting peace requires the Sunni Arab nations of the Middle East to unite and, with the help of the United States, defeat ISIS and establish a peaceful Middle East by reforming aspects of the autocratic governments that prevail in the area. We live in dangerous times. We face conventional threats from Russia, China, and North Korea. We face asymmetrical threats from the global jihad, including ISIS. The current administration has emasculated our fighting forces and purged our military leadership of competent warriors. Restoring our military should be one of our very top priorities. The voters' number-two concern is Jobs and the Economy. One approach is for the federal government to simply get out of the way, but this isn't a panacea. The federal government's tax policy, trade policy, and environmental policy have roles to play in growing the economy and creating jobs. There are many other issues Mr. Ryan neglected to include in his listing. They include entitlement reform, trade deficit reduction, domestic spying by the government, public unions, federal land management, and our relationship with Israel. By the way, whatever happened to Mr. Ryan's promise to restore order to the congressional budgetary process so as to avoid the obscene yearly omnibus sellouts? The list of priorities defined by Mr. Ryan could easily be mistaken for a Democrat platform except for the explicit abortion point and the fuzzy Obamacare point. Is Mr. Ryan more comfortable with his congressional colleagues Ms. Pelosi and Ms. Blabbermouth Schultz than with his supposed constituents? Once I had recovered my equilibrium after reading the list, I changed my answer on "Do you approve of the job Speaker Paul Ryan is doing in Congress?" from "Not sure" to "No." This essay as a vote of no confidence. Mr. Ryan may take whatever solace it's worth in that the feckless Mr. McConnell in the Senate is held in less regard. I can rant and rail, but it won't change the fact that the two of them are presently off hobnobbing with the Republican fat cats on how to subvert the voters' will in the primary process. Grrr. Mike Johnson is a small government conservative and a live-free-or-die resident of New Hampshire. He is the author of John Kerry & PCF-44. E-mail mnosnhoj@comcast.net. In the Miami debate, Trump blurted out that he didn't understand the delegate requirement of 1,237. The number is apparently random. Trump said at the debate: If two of us get up there, I would say this, if -- if Marco, if the governor, if Ted had more votes than me in the form of delegates, I think whoever gets to the top position as opposed to solving that artificial number that was by somebody, which is a very random number, I think that whoever gets the most delegates should win. That's what I think. But it isn't random or artificial. It's simple. There are a total of 2,472 delegates in all the primaries and caucuses and in all the jurisdictions that hold them, including the at-large delegates, the congressional district delegates, and RNC delegates. This was decided on before the race began. Joining the race implies agreement with the process, much as enrolling in a college implies agreeing with the number of units needed to complete your major or general education requirements. Half of 2,472 is 1,236 or exactly fifty percent. The RNC quite sensibly requires a candidate to reach that number plus one, or 1,237, or 50.1%. It is probable that no one barring a political tornado hitting unexpectedly will reach 1,237, unless Trump wins Ohio and Florida. But let's assume he doesn't. What then? The convention is contested. After the first round of voting at the convention, and no one winning a majority, then the delegates are free or unattached, though I'm not sure what roles the three categories of delegates play with each other. In any case, here's how the rules should be drafted in simplest terms. (1) Before each round of new voting can take place, the candidates who had the most delegates (the four leaders right now, excluding Carson, who has, significantly, now endorsed Trump, so he may encourage his delegates to vote for Trump) before the first round of voting should give speeches explaining why the delegates should switch to them. Limit the speech to five minutes. (2) Then the delegates vote. They keep doing this until they reach a majority of 1,237 for one candidate. Of course, the candidates can wheel and deal and perhaps form a coalition say, Cruz-Rubio (though I prefer Rubio-Cruz) or any other combination. But in Rubio's case, that may not be viable if he doesn't win Florida, so maybe a rule exists or can be agreed on beforehand that says you are excluded from being on the top of the ticket if you lose your state. Whatever happens, Trump's supporters should not cry if the not-Trump delegates, who make up around two thirds right now, don't vote for him, but settle on one of the other three, mostly likely Cruz. The convention leaders must, however, keep the process open and guided by the vote; then the process is fair and democratic. And there will be no (reasonable) accusations of a cabal of the so-called Establishment deciding things behind the closed doors of a smoke-filled room, twirling their Snidely Whiplash mustaches. It will be the delegates who decide. James Arlandsons website is Live as Free people, where he has posted Reagans balanced and reasonable politics, Gov. Reagans Secret Missions (his outreach to minorities), and How conservatives can finally read America accurately (for a change). From the moment he got up to speak at that prayer breakfast a few years ago and told the truth about Obamacare with Obama sitting a few feet away, millions of Americans fell in love with Ben Carson. They saw him as their savior, the vessel of their anger and fears for our country. Once he announced his intention to run for the presidency, millions rallied to his candidacy. Most of us knew he could not make it to the nomination he is too soft-spoken and too entirely without guile. We knew he was too good to be true. We knew the media and the hated "establishment" would take him down. And they did. As the campaign began, millions of people supported Dr. Carson. He was an anti-politico, a genuine good man, a breath of the freshest air. He was the one-man moral and intellectual hero among the candidates running for the presidency as a Republican. And then he had to suffer the horrific verbal assaults, and they were vicious verbal assaults indeed, from Donald Trump verbal assaults too vile to repeat here. Dr. Carson did not fight back, depending on the intelligence of the populace to see through the villainy and lies of Trump's egregious attacks. It does not take a historian or a scholar to see Trump for what he is: an intimidating thug, a goon who takes out his opponents any way deemed necessary. The things he said about Dr. Carson, over and over again, are so horrific, so below the belt, Mr. Trump revealed himself, over and over again, to be a man of the lowest character. Dickens did not invent him, but he knew men like him and based many of his characters on them. Dickens and the Founders, not to mention Locke, Burke, Montesquieu, warned us about people like Donald Trump. So why on Earth did Dr. Carson endorse Trump? The man we all believed Carson to be could never have endorsed Trump. So is he not the man we believed him to be, or is he tragically naive? He cannot, at this point in the campaign, possibly believe that Trump is qualified to be the president of the United States. Trump knows nothing about the Constitution. He knows nothing about foreign policy, the terrorist threats we face, about Cuba, the Middle East, especially Israel. He knows nothing about the military, the wholesale ruination of higher education by the tyranny of political correctness, the ridiculous dictates of multiculturalism, safe spaces, trigger warnings, the nonsense of "microaggressions." He knows nothing about the infantilization of our millennials. If they, our millennials, absorb and capitulate to all this nonsense, they will never be fit to function in the real and ever changing world. They will run crying out of the room the first time they are chastised, criticized, or reprimanded by an employer that is, if they find a job. Donald Trump is aware of none of this. He is a deal-maker, a negotiater, a rich man. Being rich is the primary component of his identity. He may care about the country, but he knows nothing about the principles, the morality, about the conservatism, the liberty promised by a limited government, the Constitution or the rule of law that made it the greatest nation on earth. Ben Carson knows this about Trump, so why on Earth did he endorse him? 'Tis a mystery. The invective against Donald Trump has recently reached new heights, as his detractors have dusted off the old Hitler comparisons and brought them to the fore. Even Bill Maher jokingly compared The Donald to Hitler in a segment on his show. Needless to say, such misguided attempts at castigating Trump sickeningly diminish the real atrocities committed by the real Hitler. These people show how little they know, but in addition, last night they showed their hypocrisy. In advance of a Trump rally on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus on Friday night, protesters flooded the arena with the express goal of shutting down the event. Physical altercations are reported to have taken place between the protesters and Trump supporters. With the safety of his supporters in mind, Trump rightly canceled the event. When this was announced, the protesters erupted in applause, their mission accomplished to stifle opposing points of view. Many of the protesters were heard to have chanted Bernie! Bernie! after the cancelation was announced. I doubt that Bernie Sanders would openly condone what took place at the arena, but he has condoned even praised the totalitarian tactics of the Castro brothers. Would he call on his supporters to refrain from such actions hostile to the First Amendment? Scanning social media this evening, Ive seen some Bernie supporters laudably condemn what occurred, but Ive seen just as many, if not more, claiming these are Trumps just deserts. I have no doubt that the perpetrators of last nights lawlessness applaudingly condoned the likening of Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, all the while engaging in real actions straight out of the playbook of the Sturmabteilung the infamous Brownshirts. Mechanically enforcing the will of the Nazi Party, the Brownshirts disrupted meetings of opposing parties, employing force and violence to make their mark and discourage dissent. This is precisely what these thugs did last night, abandoning the law and civil discourse to perversely embrace the tactics of a man and a party they witlessly accuse Trump and the Republican party of embodying. This, though, is a hallmark of statists they accuse their opponents of doing what they themselves do. They make the comparison to Hitler without a sense of irony, carelessly analogizing Trumps proposal to temporary ban the entry of Muslims to the United States to Hitlers Final Solution. They call Trump a fascist and shamelessly employ fascist tactics against him and his supporters. Regardless of what one thinks about Donald Trump, he has a right to speak, and his supporters have a right to peaceably assemble. Those rights are enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution. Our nation cherishes that right and has historically celebrated the ability of opponents on an issue to speak their minds and debate. However, its a right statists on college campuses embrace when its their message they want to shout from the rooftops but condemn when faced with differing viewpoints. The selective application of freedom of speech is no freedom at all. The left paint themselves as eminently tolerant of others, but that facade crumbles when put to the test. Just look at the excoriation of Caitlyn Jenner by the left when the transgendered reality star made supportive statements about Ted Cruz. Last night was not at all different. Trump comes to Chicago, where he has many supporters, but his leftist detractors rule the day through intimidation, violence, and anarchy. The mob ruled last night, giving the civil political process our nation has long enjoyed a miss. The Chicago Police did an admirable job of keeping a bad situation from going worse, but I fear that this lot of students cum Brownshirts will only embolden others. Given the circumstances, I believe that Trump did the right thing to cancel the rally, but he has sent a message: you can silence me by adopting such tactics. For statists, this could serve as an open invitation to storm rallies across the country, inciting violence and usurping the rule of law. Just as Trump and his supporters have the right to assemble and speak, his opponents likewise have the right to peaceably protest. They do not have the right to overrun Trumps rallies, nor to silence opposition. This is an important point. The rights we enjoy in this nation are not enjoyed the world over. We have the opportunity to speak and debate and engage in the free flow of ideas. This is the very foundation of the civil society. The first step toward tyranny is to remove that ability. This ideology says, If I dont like what you have to say, its perfectly justifiable to shut you down. Of what else is such an ideology capable? History gives us the answer, and its deeply troubling. To be sure, its a long road from point A to point Z, but for those to whom the end justifies the means, its a smooth, straight road. As 2016 starts, crime is up yet again in the post-marijuana legalization metropolis of Denver, Colorado. The latest data shows that reported offenses during January 2016 increased a further 4.5% from the same month in 2015. This continues a consistent trend seen since the state's marijuana legalization process started in mid-2013. During 2015, total reported crime increased 4.1% over 2014, with the number of murders up 74%, aggravated assaults up 14%, forcible sexual offenses up 8%, and non-forcible sex offenses up 39%. In 2012, the year before the legalization framework was brought into force, there were 44,338 total reported crimes in Denver. Last year, this number hit 63,816, an increase of nearly 20,000 crimes per year 44% higher than in the pre-legal pot era. Population increase doesn't come close to explaining the trend. Annual growth rates for population in the Denver and Metro Denver areas have been consistent at just 2% over this period, meaning the crime rate is rising rapidly. And yet, somehow the Denver Post claims that "in any given year, marijuana-related crimes in Denver make up less than 1 percent of all offenses counted in the Uniform Crime Report and less than a half-percent of all NIBRS offenses." There is no reliable way to determine what percentage of the reported crimes are due to marijuana legalization. Some offenses, when investigated by authorities, will show an unequivocal direct cause to marijuana use. But it is simply impossible to accurately measure all offenses directly caused by pot use. If an individual engages in criminal activity either under the influence of marijuana, or in some direct manner related to marijuana (e.g., in order to steal something to pay for marijuana use, etc.), this cannot be determined unless (1) the police fully investigate all reported offenses, both minor and serious (which they do not), and (2) the perpetrator is caught and successfully prosecuted, having the facts including any relation to marijuana clearly established beyond a reasonable doubt in court (which is an even smaller percentage of total reported crimes). Consequently, the low rate of proven direct associations between crime in Denver and marijuana use is expected, and it tells us nothing about the actual direct causes of marijuana use on crime in the region. It is simply an unknowable question. Equally important is the indirect effect of marijuana use. The legalization of pot sends a powerful anti-societal message to many, and its use can lead to socio-economic decline for individuals and families the results of which may take a long period to show their real effects and be essentially impossible to link to marijuana use without a suite of equally long (and expensive) case studies. We lack the resources for these investigations, and, as a result, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The Post's article even acknowledges the limitations of the city's cursory investigation: "The numbers are for more serious offenses and do not include petty citations for violations such as public marijuana consumption, nor do they include crimes committed by juveniles." In other words, we don't know what we don't know. But what we do know is that the number of crimes in Denver skyrocketed started at the same time the legalized marijuana policy was implemented, and this empirical evidence, combined with what science tells us about the harmful psychological effects of marijuana use, is, while not conclusive, strongly suggestive that the social fabric is starting to unravel in the Mile-High City due to pot legalization. And now we see that "Colorado's Governor is cautioning other states from legalizing marijuana." According to a report by Channel 7 ABC in Denver, Gov. John Hickenlooper made the following statements at a conference in Dallas on Tuesday: You get all those young people who do certain things that some of us oppose and aren't crazy about, like legalizing marijuana. Let me tell you, if you're trying to encourage businesses to move to your state, some of the larger businesses, think twice about legalizing marijuana. Looks as though the blowback from Colorado's legalized marijuana experiment is starting to cut broad and deep across the state. All this was predicted, and there is little doubt that the net societal costs of legal pot far outweigh the modest tax revenues being collected off sales of the drug. The debate was pathetic and hard to watch. I guess Mrs. Clinton and Senator Sanders will tell Hispanics a bunch of lies to get their votes in November. The Spanish word is "mentiras." They are pandering pure fantasy, as noted by Buck Sexton: Despite that rhetorical caution, however, on the issue of deportations both candidates ventured from standard Democratic National Committee talking points and platitudes about the American dream, launching into a frenzy of outright pandering and promised lawlessness. Pressed by the moderators, Clinton suggested that deportations would end for all "non-criminal" illegal immigrants should she become president. Sanders appeared to agree. The implications of such a promise are inescapable: if only serious criminals are to be deported, is everyone else who comes to America or is already here illegally allowed to stay? What about newly arrived illegals? Don't they have families too? And what precedent would it set for the country if the commander in chief felt entitled to ignore a huge body of existing federal law? In their efforts to one up each other as champions of illegal immigrants (all of whom have in fact broken U.S. federal law) Clinton and Sanders dabbled in the fantasy that it is possible to secure our borders without enforcing laws against a vast majority of illegal entrants. They weren't just peddling amnesty on that stage, they were in effect dabbling in open borders. I guess Bernie and Hillary believe that you win Hispanic votes by making promises you can't keep. Or by overlooking blue-collar whites, who are suddenly listening to Mr. Trump. And African-Americans, who must be wondering what all of that allegiance to Democrats has done for them. Of course, it wasn't that long ago that Bernie and Hillary were singing a different tune. Mrs. Clinton once had a tough stance against illegal immigration, and Sanders saw the McCain-Kennedy bill as a threat to U.S. workers. That was then, and this is now. Sadly, today's Democratic Party is all about telling minorities what they want to hear and promising to pay it all by raising taxes on the rich. P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. Hillary Clinton tried to be classy Friday, softening her image by attending the funeral of Nancy Reagan, and it blew up in her face. While I give her credit for contrasting sharply with President Obamas snub of the event (in order to attend the SXSW hipster music/culture festival in Austin, Texas, where he offered a pro forma statement from a completely inappropriate venue), she was undone by her proclivity to make crap up to make herself look good. In this instance, it was not claiming she was under sniper fire arriving in Bosnia, but a more benign casual fabrication: praising Nancy Reagan for talking about AIDS when it was not so easy: "It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV-AIDS back in the 1980s. And because of both president and Mrs. Reagan in particular Mrs. Reagan we started a national conversation," Clinton said. "When before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something that I really appreciate with her very effective, low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscious, and people began to say, 'Hey, we have to do something about this, too.'" The problem for Hillary was that it is an article of faith on the homosexual left that because President and Mrs. Reagan did not immediately devote huge amounts of attention and government resources to the new disease, they are responsible for the deaths of those who contracted the behaviorally spread disease. In the forefront were activists who were scathing in their blame. As Dan Zak wrote in the Washington Post: In 1988 the gay writer and pioneering AIDS activist Larry Kramer wrote a play titled Just Say No borrowing Nancys anti-drug catchphrase to skewer the Reagans and other influentials who were inattentive to the AIDS crisis. I put every bit of awfulness I could uncover into this, Kramer told Liz Smith in 1991. His tone typified the ruthless contempt for the Reagans that came from the gay community in particular. So Hillary stepped on a landmine by praising Nancy Reagan, and the response was immediate. Reagans started a "national convo about AIDS" only if people screaming "WHY WON'T YOU TALK ABOUT AIDS?!?" at them counts. @HillaryClinton Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) March 11, 2016 Nothing gets the attention of a Democrat candidate faster than criticism from the homosexual left. Hillary Clintons statement on her comments about the Reagans' record on HIV and AIDS: pic.twitter.com/RtIs0zpJfk Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 11, 2016 I can just imagine Hillary muttering to herself, Damn, I try to say something nice about a Republican, and look what happens. I wont make that mistake again. The violence last night in Chicago that resulted in the cancelation of a Donald Trump campaign rally won't affect the votes of the candidate's most ardent supporters or opponents. But there are a lot of voters who want to support Trump but aren't sure about him. Then there are voters who lean against supporting Trump but who are persuadable. It is those two classes of voters who could turn this GOP primary campaign on a dime and either give Trump a runaway victory or lead to a loss of support that would hand Ted Cruz a golden opportunity to run off a string of primary wins. Which way these voters go will depend on their perception of what happened in Chicago and whether Trump himself is responsible for the violence. His opponents believe he is: Fellow Republican presidential candidates are speaking out after Donald Trump canceled his campaign rally in Chicago, Illinois amid massive crowds of protesters and what the Trump camp said were fears about safety. "I think a campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment, when the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence to punch people in the face," Sen. Ted Cruzsaid, speaking to reporters at Rolling Meadows, Illinois. "The predictable consequence of that is that it escalates. And today is unlikely to be the last such instance...That's not how our politics should occur. "You know, the city of Chicago in 1968, saw some ugly days when politics descended into hatred and instability and even violence. It is my hope that in 2016 we can appeal to our better angels and avoid going down that road once again." Protesters and Trump supporters clashed outside an event in St. Louis and there were several scuffles inside the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. Trump has drawn fire for remarks that apparently encouraged violence against protesters, including saying in one instance that he wanted to punch someone in the face. Five people were arrested, and two police officers were injured, Chicago Police said. Sen. Marco Rubio argued it's Trump's rhetoric that is inciting violence at his events. "I should point out there isnt violence at my events," Rubio said. "There isnt violence at Teds events. There isnt violence at a Kasich event. There isnt violence at a Clinton event." "There is only one presidential candidate who has violence at their events. And I do think Donald needs to realize and take responsibility for the fact that some of the rhetoric he has used could be contributing to this environment that is growing increasingly disturbing for a number of Americans," Rubio told ABC News at a media availability in Naples, Florida. Trump has used shocking rhetoric to urge his supporters to physically assault protesters: At a press conference in Florida on Friday, Trump was asked about his rhetoric in the wake of an incident in which a supporter at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, sucker-punched a black man in the face. While he wasn't asked about that specific altercation, Trump said of violent behavior in general at his events: "The audience hit back and that's what we need a little bit more of." He also praised people using physical force at his rallies as "appropriate." [...] At a rally in Michigan in early March, Trump again seemed to give the green light to violent behavior. As a protester was being escorted out of the building, Trump marveled at what a "fun time" everyone was having. "Get him out," he then said. "Try not to hurt him. If you do, I'll defend you in court, don't worry about it." He then told an anecdote about a brawl at a prior rally that was "amazing to watch." [...] At a Las Vegas rally in late February, as a protester was again being removed from the premises, Trump lamented that "we're not allowed to punch back anymore" and reminisced about the halcyon "old days," when a protester would "be carried out on a stretcher." The crowd is delighted, cheering, clapping and laughing. He then said he'd like to punch the man in the face, again to cheers. It is a legitimate question to ask whether such sickening rhetoric spurs violent responses to protesters. It's also a legitimate question to ask whether the protests grow in size as a result of the threats. Chicago and St. Louis showed that the threats of violence against demonstrators are certainly not deterring anyone from protesting. Trump should be allowed to speak about anything, hold rallies anywhere, and his supporters should be free to gather to hear him. This is the essence of American democracy, and the protesters should be damned for their efforts to silence the candidate. The violent protests will generate some sympathy for Trump. But I think a lot more voters will be appalled that Trump's rhetoric has opened a chasm beneath our feet and given us a glimpse of hell. Violence at political rallies makes us look like a banana republic and cheapens our democracy. The protesters should be allowed to scream all they want outside the arenas were Trump rallies will take place. And Trump should dial down the violent rhetoric that encourages his supporters to lash out at protesters. Recently we were subjected to endless speculation from the media as to why Donald Trump wouldn't denounce the Ku Klux Klan because a former leader of that white supremacist group, David Duke, had supposedly endorsed Trump's presidential candidacy. Well, Duke said he didn't, and Donald denounced until I was about ready to denounce Donald if he didn't quit groveling to the yapping media with more denunciations truly uncharacteristic for him. Now we've had a mob of a few hundred self-described Bernie Sanders supporters stop a Trump rally in Chicago with an unruly demonstration that had fistfights breaking out in the streets. It was impossible not to notice that liberally distributed throughout that crowd were numerous Mexican national flags, with a very large one being center focus of Fox News's favored street shot of the mob. In spite of that flag being center screen for much of Greta Van Susteren's coverage of the event, she apparently couldn't see those broad white, green, and red bands waving in front of her because she kept asking the street reporters if they could identify the makeup of the crowd. And apparently the reporters were just as afflicted with colorblindness as Greta, for they never appeared to notice the half-dozen or so Mexican flags I counted in that small pack. And the color perception problem must be endemic at Fox, because Megyn Kelly couldn't see those foreign banners, either, even as she was asking a reporter on the ground to identify the affiliation of the protesters. Since this protest was taking place in Chicago and appeared to be well organized, it would seem unlikely that a few Hispanics carrying Mexican flags just happened to wander onto the scene. I'm more inclined to believe that an inquiring Fox reporter might have discovered that they were professional protesters from a militant Hispanic organization, perhaps La Raza Unida or, considering the protesters' youth, MEChA, both movements that advocate Hispanic racial superiority and separation and are entrenched in Chicago's large Hispanic minority. Of course, the leadership of these organizations, and certainly the protesters, will deny that they are racist, but consider one of their oft-repeated mantras: "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada," which translates, "For the Race, everything, outside the Race, nothing." Does that sound a bit racist to you? Memo to Democrat protest planning headquarters: Multiple Mexican flags carried by angry protesters denying Trump the right to address an audience might be counterproductive, reinforcing in voters' minds the validity of his call for a border wall. To put it all a bit more into perspective, do you suppose, had there been some pro-Trump counter-protesters out on those same streets waving Confederate Stars and Bars, that Fox might not have had so much difficulty spotting them? Think the terms racist, racism, and KKK might have been flying back and forth between Greta and Megyn and the street reporters in their outraged discussions of Trump supporters carrying that hateful symbol? So, Bernie, since that mob boasted that they're yours, we're all out here awaiting your vigorous public denunciation of those racist and separatist Hispanic demonstrators uh...college students, who were a highly visible (except to Fox News) part of it. Or, as Trump was asked ad nauseam, do you embrace their racist and separatist views? As the US Navy ramped up for World War 2, its leadership began the unprecedented task of recruiting 27,000 female sailors called WAVES, an acronym for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. Previously, it was only during the first world war that the Navy accepted females into its ranks, and mainly for clerical roles and as nurses, not as officers. After a twenty-three-year absence, women returned to general Navy service in early August 1942, when Mildred McAfee was sworn in as a Naval Reserve Lieutenant Commander, the first female commissioned officer in US Navy history, and the first Director of the WAVES. WAVES were not allowed to serve aboard combat ships or aircraft, and initially were restricted to duty in the continental United States. The WAVES performed atypical duties in the aviation community - Judge Advocate General Corps, medical professions, communications, intelligence, science and technology. Late in World War II, WAVES were authorized to serve in certain overseas U.S. possessions, and a number were sent to Hawaii. The war ended before any could be sent to other locations. With the passage of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act on June 12, 1948, women gained permanent status in the armed services. Although the WAVES officially ceased to exist, the acronym was in common use well into the 1970s. See another great collection of photographs of Women in World War 2. Sources: A Continuous Lean, Naval History and Heritage, Wikipedia Related: Berlin After The World War 2 The Death Camps of Auschwitz: Then and Now Maunsell Forts of the World War 2 CeBIT is the largest and easily one of the most internationally represented computer and technology expos in Germany. It is considered a barometer of current trends and a measure of the state of the arts in information technology. Hesvit S3 is going to be on show at CeBIT in Germany (14.03.16-18.03.16) after showcasing at both the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and also Mobile World Congress (MWC) in 2016. With more than two years R&D, Hesvit has developed an all-around fitness tracker, the Hesvit S3 smart band. One which can track and monitor a wealth of your physical indicators and all day long. Advertisement One of the highlights of the Hesvit S3 is its all in one screen that allows the wearer to read all of their physical indicators at the same time and on one display. Besides monitoring basic functions including the Heart rate, Distance, Calories burned, Steps and Sleep, the Hesvit S3 also has the ability to monitor your surroundings including aspects like humidity monitoring, ambient pressure monitoring, wrist temperature monitoring, wrist humidity, wrist skin temperature, as well as the heart rate, air pressure, skin temperature, tri-axis accelerometer and temperature / humidity sensors. Not to mention that all the data recorded is highly accurate and recorded using Hesvits own algorism. Based on the results of hundreds of patents, the Hesvit S3 is not only useful for tracking your regular activities but is also as helpful when used outdoors, or even in more secluded environments such as on the plane. The Hesvit S3 makes use of a conveniently positioned microUSB port for charging and is a device which offers excellent standby time in general, as it can last as long as 5 7 days in between charges. In celebrating Hesvits arrival at CeBIT in Germany, those who are interested in checking out the Hesvit S3 in more detail or purchasing, can do so through the Hesvit website and also through e-commerce websites that the company has developed deep relationship with, such as Pandawill, Geekbuying, Coolicool, etc.. For those who will be attending CeBIT, they well be able to check out the Hesvit S3 in person by visiting the Hesvit stand located at Cebit Hall 13 stand B19 in Germany (14.03.16-18.03.16)! The big debate lately has been between the FBI and Apple. Following the shootings in San Bernadino, CA back in December, the FBI has been trying to get Apple to crack open the dead shooters iPhone 5C so that the FBI can get some intel. This has set a whole new standard when it comes to smartphones. You see, many thought that Apple and Google had backdoors built into their smartphone OS, but that appears to be untrue. Additionally, Apple doesnt think they should have to crack open a phone whenever the government suspects something. Which could open up a whole other can of worms for both Apple and the government. But there needs to be a balance between the two. According to President Barack Obama who was speaking at South by Southwest on Friday in Austin, TX. Obama stated that he stays committed to privacy and civil liberties that each American gets, but he did also state that there needs to be a balance between intrusion and privacy. Saying that a little intrusion when needed should be possible. The question we now have to ask is: If technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there is no key, theres no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot, said President Obama. Advertisement Not everyone is a fan of President Obama, but he does have a point here. While the government shouldnt be able to tap into your smartphone whenever they wish to do so, they also should be able to tap into your smartphone to stop terrorist attacks like what happened in San Bernadino from happening. Apples court case against the FBI could change the way encryption is done, and its going to be really interesting to see just what the judge rules on in this case. The ruling wouldnt affect just those with an iPhone, but anyone using any smartphone. Whether its running Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile or any other OS. Definitely something to keep an eye on. T-Mobile, aka the Uncarrier, has been poking fun at their rivals for a while now. Thats not really new. But they are doing it in different ways these days. Weve seen T-Mobile come out with the Earnings Drinking game for earnings calls for each of the wireless carriers, including their own. But now, they have put together a photo caption contest on Twitter. Actually the contest has already started, and they have posted some of the best results, which are shown below. You can still enter by using the hashtag #VerizonContentDonkey. So why is T-Mobile going after Verizon this time? Well Verizon seems to want to deliver content to their users. Thats something all the carriers are doing these days. Although Verizon wants to own the content as well, in Go90. Thats their over-the-top or OTT mobile video streaming service. T-Mobile says that creating and owning content is a tough thing to do, and they arent wrong. However they also note that Hulu, Netflix, and others do it very well. They also note that T-Mobile customers can watch it for free thanks to BingeOn. Much like BingeOn, Verizon allows users to watch Go90 content for free as well, without hitting their data cap. However, that is only for Go90 and not other video streaming services, so its more than likely going to get some attention from the FCC. Advertisement T-Mobile seems to think that the reason Verizon is looking to deliver content to you that they own is because they are feeling the heat from T-Mobile. After all, T-Mobile has added a ton of coverage lately, and grabbed a ton of customers from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint as of late. AT&T is looking to do the same thing. Use video to leverage their service over their competitors, and use ads to offset the cost of users watching all that video for free, without it hitting their data cap. The wireless industry has gotten a whole lot more competitive in the past few years, and its likely going to get even more competitive. Especially after the incentive auction takes place later this month for the coveted 600MHz spectrum. Weve seen plans change, prices drop, and even contracts go away. Serbia: 1.9 bln infrastructural projects with EU funds Construction of the Nis-Pristina motorway included (ANSAmed) - BELGRADE, 11 MARCH - 18 infrastructural projects of strategic importance, worth 1.9 bln euros, are in the process of being prepared, reads a conclusion of the third meeting of the National Board for Investments. Serbian Government intends to carry out the projects using EU grants, favourable loans from international financial institutions and money from the budget. Aside from the construction of the Nis-Pristina motorway, the list of projects include construction of drives for processing wastewater in Novi Sad abd modernisation of railway tracks along Corridor 10. (ANSAmed) Syria: five years of conflict.'No more bombing of civilians' Appeal by 30 NGOs to world leaders to reinforce fragile truce (ANSAmed) - ROME, March 11 - No further delay is possible on the humanitarian disaster in Syria - world leaders must find a way to reinforce the only glimmer of hope represented by the very fragile cease-fire just reached. This is the appeal issued today by 30 non governmental organisations in the report: 'Syria: gasoline on the fire," re-launched in Italy by the #WithSyria campaign, which photographs the chaos and the fragmentation in which the country has plunged five years after the start of the conflict. Among those signing are Oxfam, Save the Children, Actionaid, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Care International and Syrian civil society organisations such as the Syrian-American Medical Society, Big Heart and Syria Relief and Development. The NGOs underline that 2015 was the most tragic year since the start of the war with the civilians paying the price, exhausted by the worsening of the conflict, through the block on aid and the state of siege in which many people find themselves. There have been some 250,000 casualties since the start of the conflict, according to UN estimates, and more than 50,000 in 2015, while as many as 12 million Syrians inside the country have no access to drinking water and 9 million are obliged to live in conditions of food insecurity. It is an atrocious contest in which the world's great powers, permanent members of the UN Security Council, the NGOs underline, have not resolved the humanitarian crisis under way but on the contrary have contributed to exacerbating the crisis, undermining the resolutions they approved themselves, by supplying political and military support for the different parties in the conflict or by military action itself on Syrian territory. (ANSAmed). Turkey says Aegean migrants fall from 6,800 to 2,000 a day Turkey to Greece re-entries continue, 5 islands to be evacuated (ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, MARCH 11 - The number of migrants trying each day to cross the Aegean illegally from Turkey towards the Greek coast has tumbled to around 2000 a day in February from 6,800 a day in October, according to Turkish government sources in Ankara. Turkish authorities have stopped some 50,000 migrants on that route since the start of the year including 15,000 in the sea and 35,000 during operations on land. Meanwhile Greece today repatriated to Turkey 90 migrants from Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan and Turkey itself who entered Greek territory illegally. The migrants were expelled on the basis of a re-admission agreement between the two countries, reaffirmed this week by the visit of Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras at Izmir. Another 308 migrants were sent back to Turkey last week. Migrants and refugees who at the moment are on five Greek islands will be evacuated and, on the basis of pacts with the EU, Turkey will accept to take back those who landed on those islands since the agreement came into force. While not identified explicitly, the islands are believed to be those with highest migrant flows -- Lesbos, Kos, Chios, Leros and Samos, (ANSAmed). Migrants: Madrid parliament rejects EU-Turkey accord All oppose except P.Popular, Socialists slam 'shameful accord' (ANSAmed) - MADRID, MARCH 11 - All Spanish political groupings except for the Partido Popular have cast votes in the Congress of deputies rejecting the agreement on refugees initialled last week between the EU and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey. Spanish Mps threw out the agreement with Ankara by 227 votes against compared to 123 in favour, El Pais online said. Socialist Party Secretary Pedro Sanchez called the pact with Erdogan an "agreement of shame," "immoral" and "illegal" and asked that it be modified before it is ratified by the European Council in Brussels next week. Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said that he "feels ashamed of the EU, which systematically is not respecting human rights". (ANSAmed). Le CBD, cette molecule active du cannabis a aujourdhui le vent en poupe. Et cela est en grande partie du au fait quil permet... If you havent invested in business signage yet, you need to make sure you purchase quality signage that will last for years. The last thing you want is for your signage to be damaged or to lose its beauty, which can be just as damaging to your business as having no signage at all. A good business sign should be eye-catching year-round, and it should be made of a material that can withstand the elements. There are several different materials you can choose from when selecting a business sign. One of the most popular types of business signs today is an LED banner. This type of sign uses LED lights to display a message on either a short or widescreen. An LED banner is customizable in real-time, and its most common form is the marquee sign. Movie theaters and other businesses use marquee signs to announce events. If you want to make a big impact with your business signage, consider purchasing a LED banner. Its a great way to attract attention and increase sales for your business. A good sign should reflect your business branding and highlight your products. Technology-based businesses might benefit from a dynamic electronic message center. For a more classy and classic approach, a simple, classic sign can be very effective. If you dont want to spend too much money on a sign, check out Canva, Vistaprint, or Fiverr for a quick sign. There are many great websites online that will design and create your sign for you. Regardless of the industry, a well-designed signage will give your business an edge over competitors. According to a recent study, up to 68 percent of Americans have purchased a product because of a visually appealing sign. A business owners signage speaks volumes about their brand, and should be made with attention-getting colors and bright lighting. It can be updated as frequently as necessary, and the potential for different products and services to be advertised is huge. The cost of a sign depends on the materials used and the design. A black-and-white sign will cost much less than a colorful one. Complex designs will cost more than simple ones. Another factor affecting the price of a sign is how long you plan to have it. If you plan to change the design of your sign often, consider using a design that can be easily updated. This will save you money and time in the long run. If youre planning to get business signs, consider hiring a professional sign company to handle the process. A full-service sign company can take care of the permitting process, submit the required plans, and start creating your signage. Despite the benefits, you should still be careful when selecting business signs. A wrong choice of location can violate ADA requirements and make your business signage unusable. You dont want to end up with a sign that is hard to read or doesnt tell anyone anything about your products or services. A properly designed sign will draw attention and generate positive emotions. Customers are attracted to beauty and a beautifully designed business sign fulfills that desire. It will also help you earn the loyalty of your customers. A nicely-furnished sign can also show the commitments of your business. Whether youre in a retail store, office, or a restaurant, signage should convey what you stand for. This means that you should take your time choosing a design that fits your business image. LED lights are a great option for lighting your signs. They can be 80% more efficient than neon lights and have an incredibly long lifespan. LED lights can be easily installed in any space, and you can install as many as you need. However, you should be aware that the color of your signage will depend on the type of LED lights you choose. This is why you need to research LED lights before you purchase them. This can help you choose the right type of lighting for your business signs. Businesses should invest in digital signage in order to attract potential customers. This is a highly effective advertising option that can reach your target audience in a cost-effective way. It is also a great way to connect with your employees and customers. A digital storefront business sign can communicate with customers, build brand recognition, and make your outlet a landmark. So, it is important to invest in quality signage to make the most of your business. It is important to keep in mind that a poorly designed sign may even cause confusion. 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(5) Sep 25 (7) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (1) Sep 18 (2) Sep 15 (1) Sep 13 (2) Sep 11 (1) Sep 06 (2) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (1) Aug 31 (1) Aug 30 (2) Aug 28 (1) Aug 23 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 17 (1) Aug 16 (2) Aug 14 (1) Aug 10 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 02 (2) Jul 25 (1) Feb 14 (1) by Paul Dakiki In a video, IS calls on Christians to convert to Islam, urges Sunnis to rise up and impose Islamic law on Lebanon. Hezbollah, which is fighting the al-Nusra Front and IS in Syria, is declared a terrorist group. Arab League and Arab Gulf States also condemn "terrorist" Hezbollah. Riyadh is accused of supporting extremist groups in Syria and Iraq. Iran warns against putting Lebanons stability at risk. Beirut (AsiaNews) The Islamic State (IS) group released a video in which it threatens Lebanese Christians calling on to convert or suffer the consequences and urges Lebanese Sunnis to rise up and impose Islamic law. The same video accuses Hezbollah of being the source of crime and oppression in the country, a statement that coincides with an Arab League summit in Cairo that also condemned the Lebanese Shia movement as a "terrorist" group, days after Arab interior ministers and the Gulf Cooperation Council issued similar resolutions. The IS video was released by the media office of the Raqqa emirate in Syria. It shows two IS members from Lebanon urging Christians to convert to Islam and if they fail to do so, then they will not be able to confront the IS. The video goes on to accuse Lebanese Sunnis and Shias, along with politicians, for allowing the rise of Hezbollah. You will not stop the arrival of the Islamic State, the extremists warn. Perhaps we will cross over to Jerusalem over your remains, threatened one of the two IS members. Your constitution is that of 'takfir' and you are being ruled by criminals, they declare, whilst addressing Sunnis. Your constitution is the Quran and the way of the Sunna, while their's is the way of the devil, they added. Hezbollah is a Shia political movement and armed group, whose influence in Lebanese politics has grown in recent decades. Allied to and supported by Iran, it has put its military force at the service of Assad regime in fighting Sunni extremist groups like al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda) and IS, inflicting major defeats on them. ISs attack against Hezbollah comes a few hours after the Arab League in Cairo voted by a large majority to declare Hezbollah a "terrorist" group. Lebanon and Iraq did not vote for the motion, angering the Saudi representative who left the meeting in protest. Hezbollah enjoys wide representation in Lebanon and it is a main component in the country, Lebanese Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil said. The Arab League's move follows a similar one by the Saudi-led GCC, which has designated Hizbullah as terrorist over alleged "terrorist acts and incitement in Syria, Yemen and in Iraq." For its part, Hezbollah criticized the GCC resolution as "irresponsible and hostile, saying that it "won't prevent us from condemning the crimes of Saudi Arabia in Yemen, the kingdom's financing and support of terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria, or its collaboration with (Israel)." Iran also slammed the Saudi move, warning its Gulf Arab rivals that they were jeopardising Lebanon's stability. Because of the rivalry between Riyadh and Tehran, Lebanon has been unable to elect a new president for almost two years. * In Islamic law, takfir is the practice of one Muslim declaring another as kafir (infidel). Apple and its supporters try to alarm this court with issues of network security, encryption, back doors, and privacy, invoking larger debates before Congress and in the news media, the U.S. said in its reply to arguments filed by the tech companies . That is a diversion. Apple desperately wants -- desperately needs -- this case not to be about one isolated iPhone. Federal prosecutors won a court order on Feb. 16 requiring Apple to help the FBI bypass the phones security features to access encrypted data. They contend that the cooperation theyre seeking isnt different in nature than what courts have ordered Apple and other companies to provide in the past. Providing Data Apples transparency report for the first six months of 2015 also indicates that 9,717 devices were targeted in information demands from the U.S. -- more than twice as many as in China. And the compliance rate in the U.S. was 81 percent. The same report shows that Apple provided data to other governments, too. The data the government is citing on China isnt the same as what is being sought in the San Bernardino case. Prosecutors are using data from a publicly-released report Apple published that shows the company responding to orders from governments around the world. The difference in the San Bernardino case is the data is stored locally on the device behind encryption protections, which isnt something Apple is known to have helped the Chinese government overcome. Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple, didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.S. arguments. Making news this week an international law firm bolstered its team as a part of its Asia-pacific expansion, a US-based firm revealed its global integration strategy and a global legal outsourcing company recorded impressive growth. As part of its Asia-Pacific expansion, major international law firm Withers hired a team of Sydney and Singapore based corporate and commercial lawyers from hotel and hospitality specialist firm Ryan Lawyers. Leading Withers Asia-Pacific hotels practice will be Robert Williams, who previously headed up Ryan Lawyers Australian business. Joining Williams will be partner Justin Gross, consultant Chris Greiner and associate Vivian Chen. Hotels and resort investment and development in Asia is growing steadily with S$12bn in transactions expected in 2016. We believe that combining our industry experience with Withers reach and reputation makes for an unbeatable proposition for us and our clients, Williams said. US-based legal giant K&L Gates revealed its global integration strategy as legal clients become increasingly more global. Speaking to Australasian Lawyer whilst visiting Australia this month, Dallas-based Craig Budner explained why integration delivers best practice. So what a fully integrated firm means is that a lawyer in London with a client relationship can meet with the client, ask them questions about their global objectives and actually instead of worrying about selling them something that they do, really give them an integrated solution that meets what they need as a client. Finally, global legal outsourcing company Integreon has recorded significant growth as lawyers search for greater efficiency. Since entering the Australian market back in 2011, Integreons client base has grown by 80 per cent. Such growth is one of the reasons for the recent expansion of Integreons operations in India, said CEO Bob Gogel. Gogel said he expects further growth as the company continues to invest in its technology. We have responded with significant investments in our facilities and technology infrastructure, including nine new or expanded facilities over the last 18 months, as well as placing greater focus on how we are attracting the best talent from across the legal and business fields. HP SUV This is out-of-the-blue stuff, as AMGAR's previous projects include a few Dodge Challengers, a Discovery and an old Astra GTC. The fact that they chose a Lexus NX 300h is a testament to how popular the Japanese luxury brand is in Russia right now.Few companies have tried to tune the engine of the Lexus NX 300h. It's not available on many other cars, has a weird combustion cycle and no turbocharger. Instead of tuning the untunable, the Russians took to the suspension. There, they installed new shocks and springs, as well as the firstlogos we've seen on brake calipers. Last time we checked, the NX 300h didn't have wavy cross-drilled brakes either, right?Fans of the American tuning scene should recognize the Vossen alloy wheels immediately. They've been coated in performance rubber and the same orange paint as the body.But the styling is where most of the magic happens. The front features an extra chin splitter, black mesh grille, carbon inserts for the air intakes and tinted headlights. Down the side, we are treated to side skirts and the first painted fender flares we've seen on a Lexus. Yes, those are factory parts that would have been left black.Around the rear, the NX has received tinted lights, a skirt that hugs the twin exhaust system and a couple of trunk spoilers.This being Japan, they could not help but do a few themed photos featuring a model in a kimono holding a bloody blade in the middle of a forest. This has to be some of the worst cosplay ever, because Yuliya Rohmacheva (that's the model's name) looks like a boy with lipstick. But don't tell her or she might commit harakiri! Photo courtesy of Honda. Honda has started selling its hydrogen-powered Clarity Fuel Cell sedan in Japan, the automaker has announced. The vehicle's 70 MPa high-pressure hydrogen storage tank enables a cruising range of roughly 466 miles. This is an increase of approximately 30% compared with the previous FCV model, according to the company. The vehicles hydrogen tank can be refilled in roughly three minutes. The Clarity Fuel Cell features a high-output motor with maximum output of 130 kilowatts. When it is combined with the Power Exporter 9000, a portable external power output device, the Clarity Fuel Cell can function as a power source on wheels that is capable of supplying roughly seven-days worth of electricity for an average household. In its first year of availability, Honda will lease the vehicle to local government bodies or businesses in Japan. During this period, Honda will collect market data about the use of the Clarity Fuel Cell, as well as the external power output device. Honda eventually plans to sell the vehicle to individual customers. Honda expects to produce about 200 units for its first year of availability. It plans to introduce the vehicle to Europe and the U.S. before the end of 2016. The Arizona flight school where Andreas Lubitz took primary flight training may face one of the massive lawsuits that will flow from the young Germanwings pilots intentional crash of an A320 in the French Alps last year. Lubitz took his primary flight training at Lufthansas Airline Training Center in Goodyear, near Phoenix. According to the German press agency DPA, Lubitz started training in 2008 but had to take a break in 2009 because of psychiatric issues. Lubitz interrupted his pilot training in 2009 due to mental health problems, Christof Wellens, a German lawyer working on the case, told DPA. In our view, he should not have been able to receive his flight licence after that, Wellens said. According to Fox News, a German doctor who examined Lubitz two weeks before the crash, which killed all 150 people on board, recommended he be hospitalized for psychiatric problems but didnt warn authorities because of stringent privacy laws in Germany. That revelation is expected to be in a final investigation report to be released by French authorities on Sunday. The report is also expected to recommend that laws be changed to allow the breach of privacy if it is believed a person intends to harm him or herself or others. Lubitz locked his captain out of the cockpit on a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf March 24, 2015, and steered the aircraft to a remote area of the Alps, where he smashed the airliner into a mountain. He was worried that eye problems would ground him but he also noted in his diary that admitting to the severe depression and other mental health issues that plagued him would have the same effect. The report is expected to recommend that pilots be allowed to use antidepressants and it also wants airlines and regulators to create an environment in which pilots with mental health issues can seek help without being stigmatized. Investigators spent Friday and Saturday briefing the families of victims of the crash. 12 March 2016 15:30 (UTC+04:00) Armenian side, as always, deliberately hides its frontline losses under various guises and confuses its own public, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told Trend on March 12. The ministry went on to add that the Armenians announce the death of their soldiers under the guise of traffic accidents, illnesses, accidents or careless handling of weapons. Despite that the Armenian side has to reveal the death of its own soldiers on the occupied Azerbaijani territories, it skillfully hides the death of mercenaries and those drafted from the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region and deceives its people, according to the ministry. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 10:30 (UTC+04:00) Cooperation between Azerbaijan's Ministry of Emergency Situations and relevant authorities of Iran is developing. Azerbaijani Minister of Emergency Situations Kamaladdin Heydarov said as he met a delegation led by the Islamic Republic of Iran Border Guard Commander Qasem Rezaee. Addressing the meeting, Heydarov hailed the strengthening of the current relations between the two neighboring and friendly countries. Highlighting the progress achieved in preventing emergency situations and eliminating their consequences in Azerbaijan, the minister stressed the importance of further development of cooperation between the ministry and Iran's relevant authorities. Iranian Border Guard Commander Qasem Rezaee, in turn, noted the significance of the steadily developing cooperation between the two countries' relevant bodies. The sides further exchanged views on a number of issues of mutual interest. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 11:00 (UTC+04:00) The Fourth Global Baku Forum is a very good opportunity for finding solutions to the biggest global problems, Peter Medgyessy, Hungarys former prime minister, told Trend on March 11. Medgyessy made this statement on the sidelines of the forum. All very important leaders of the world gathered at the forum, he said. This forum is a good tradition. All participants show big interest to the event. Medgyessy said that tolerant behavior of Azerbaijani people gives an opportunity to have a dialogue. He said that the refugee crisis is a worldwide problem. If the flow of refugees from Syria, Libya, Afghanistan continues, in that case we have to find some solution together, Medgyessy said. The Fourth Global Baku Forum titled Towards a Multipolar World that kicked off in Azerbaijan's capital on March 10-11. The Forum was organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center in partnership with the Interaction Council, the Club of Madrid, Library of Alexandria, the Club of Rome and World Academy of Science and Culture. Over 300 delegates from 53 countries attended the forum. The two-day forum focused on topical issues such as the role of interreligious dialogue in conflict prevention, migration, multiculturalism, integration and global security. The forum's agenda also includes prospects for energy and global management issues. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 12:00 (UTC+04:00) On March 10, 2016 two anti-Azerbaijani resolutions (SR 60 and SCR 93) were introduced at the Hawaii State Senate, Azerbaijans Consulate General in Los Angeles told Trend. The resolutions were introduced by legislators, misled by radical Armenian special interest groups. If adopted, the Hawaii State Legislature would have recognized the illegal regime called the "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic", which has been established on Azerbaijan's territory by Armenia following its invasion and ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijan's lands in 1991-94. The so-called "NKR", a regime of Armenia, has not been recognized by the US or any other country in the world. The United Nations Security Council and other major international organizations have repeatedly condemned this illegal occupation as well as reaffirmed their support for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Immediately after learning about these totally flawed, biased and misleading resolutions, the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles contacted the Hawaii Senators via phone calls and official letters, drawing their attention to the gross misrepresentation of facts concerning the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. As a result of these efforts, the Hawaii State Senate leadership issued on March 11, 2016 an official statement determinedly rejecting the mentioned resolutions. The statement says that the "Hawaii State Senate, consistent with the policies of the US to respect the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, will not consider and does not support the adoption of these resolutions." Azerbaijan's Consulate General thanked the Hawaii State Senate leadership for their principled statesmanship. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 14:30 (UTC+04:00) Chief of Azerbaijan's State Border Service, Colonel-General Elchin Guliyev has met a delegation led by Deputy Director of the Russian Federation's Federal Security Service, head of the Border Service Vladimir Kulishov. Prior to the meeting, the delegation has visited the Alley of Honors to lay a wreath at the tomb of national leader, founder and architect of modern Azerbaijani state Heydar Aliyev. They also put flowers at the grave of prominent ophthalmologist, academician Zarifa Aliyeva. Furthermore, the parties exchanged views on situation in Azerbaijani-Russian borders, as well as in Caspian Sea. The sides praised development of bilateral cooperation. They also noted level of relations between Azerbaijani and Russian border services contributed to solving issues on prevention of the illegal activity in state borders. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 15:00 (UTC+04:00) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Azerbaijan on March 15. The Turkish president's visit to Azerbaijan will be held within the framework of the meeting of Turkey-Azerbaijan High Level Strategic Cooperation Council. Previously scheduled visit of Turkish president to Azerbaijan was canceled due to the terrorist attack in Ankara. A terror attack was carried out in Ankara Feb. 17 near the buildings of the Turkish parliament, the general staff and a military dorm in the city. Commenting on the explosion Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the explosion killed 28 and injured 61. Reports suggest that a car bomb was detonated. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that the Syrian wing of the terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) stands behind the terrorist attack in Ankara. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 16:00 (UTC+04:00) President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received the credentials of newly-appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Moldova George Leuke. Ambassador George Leuke reviewed the guard of honor. George Leuke handed his credentials to the head of state. President Aliyev then had a conversation with the ambassador. The head of state noted that the bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Moldova have been developing successfully for many years on various fronts, including politics, as well as within international organizations. The president expressed hope that the ambassador will actively work to strengthen these ties. Stressing the importance of defining new areas of Azerbaijan-Moldova cooperation, especially in the economic sphere, President Aliyev said the two countries have not enough used their bilateral trade and investment potential. The head of state noted the significance of high-level reciprocal visits in terms of developing the bilateral relations. Underling that the two countries participate in the European Union`s programs, President Aliyev noted that the cooperation on this front is satisfactory. The head of state expressed confidence that the ambassador will contribute to the development of the bilateral ties, including cooperation in the economic area, and wished George Leuke success in his activities. Newly-appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Moldova George Leuke noted that there are big opportunities for developing the economic relations between the two countries. George Leuke said he will spare no efforts to contribute to the development of Moldova-Azerbaijan bilateral ties and the strengthening of cooperation and friendly relations. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 18:00 (UTC+04:00) Joint military exercises of Azerbaijani and Turkish air forces, TURAZ Shahini2016, continues, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on March 12. The pilots of Azerbaijani and Turkish air forces have carried out familiarization flights. Prior to the flights, the pilots participated in a briefing which focused on weather conditions and some technical issues. Then, Turkish pilots carried out flights with MiG-29 fighters and SU-25 storm troopers, while Azerbaijani pilots performed flights with F-16 fighters. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 13:30 (UTC+04:00) The observation mission from the CIS has issued an interim report about the snap parliamentary election in Kazakhstan for February 26-March 11, the countrys Central Election Commission said. The CIS observers have pointed out in this report that the pre-election process in Kazakhstan is transparent. CIS observers said that they have the right of unimpeded access to the polling stations, easy communication with members of electoral commissions, representatives of political parties and local executive bodies, RIA Novosti reported. Kazakhstan will hold the parliamentary election March 20. The following parties will participate in the election: Nur Otan, Ak Zhol Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, People's Democratic Patriotic Party "Aul", the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan, the Nationwide Social Democratic Party and the Birlik party. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 March 2016 16:30 (UTC+04:00) Turkmenistan and Pakistan plan to sign a package of bilateral documents, read a message from Turkmenistans government. The documents will be signed following the official visit of Turkmenistans President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to Pakistan on March 16-17. The documents are meant to further intensify and expand the Turkmen-Pakistani partnership, said the message. The promising areas of cooperation between the two countries include energy sphere, transportation and other fields. The two countries are involved in Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project. The construction of the TAPI gas pipeline started in mid-December 2015. Its total length is 1,735 kilometers. The main document for the TAPI, called the Ashgabat Interstate Agreement, was signed in 2010. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 3.0 ( - - ): editor [at] bahrainmirror.com Florida Polytechnic University is hoping to receive some help from the state Legislature on Friday in their drive to accreditation. According to our partners at The (Lakeland) Ledger, lawmakers are expected to approve a proposal that will extend the deadline for the new university's accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to Dec. 31, 2017. The change to the accreditation process is part of the larger finalized budget that legislators will vote Friday, the last scheduled day of the legislative session. University officials asked lawmakers for the extension. Representatives from SACS are visiting Florida Polytechnic this week. According to a SACS spokesperson, those officials will meet with university board members, administrators, faculty and students. They then will meet with the SACS board of trustees in order to make a decision about establishing the university's official candidacy for accreditation. Once candidacy is established for an institution, the SACS candidacy committee recommends at least one full year of assessment before a decision about accreditation can be made. Florida Polytechnic was created in 2012. This past year, their second in operation, the university almost doubled its enrollment to 950 students. But until Florida Polytechnic gains accreditation, it cannot pull federal student aid dollars. Many students at Florida Polytechnic have received sizable scholarships from private funds to attend the university. A group took to the streets on Tampa Friday night to push their message to stop the gun violence and they made sure their message was heard loud and clear. Robert Sherman stood on the street with a megaphone shouting the message. He lost his nephew, Chris Houston, to gun violence last month. He says hes had enough. Its nothing thats play-play that you can break and fix back. I go home every night looking for my nephew to be sitting on my damn porch! I cant see him no more, he said. Sherman along with more than a dozen other members of Stop the Violence Tampa Bay and the New Black Panther Party were at Cuscaden Park in Tampa. The group says their aim is to promote unity with each other. They also want to promote unity between police and the African-American community. They say unity is the only way to battle gun violence. Every time we leave, we take pictures with kids and we scream stop the violence. We get them that notion early to stop the violence. Get out and reach one, teach one, save one. If we cant do that as a community, theres no community, organizer Ali Muhammad said. This group says they may be starting in Tampa but they say their message is not going to stop there. They plan on spreading this message all over the bay area. The timing is no coincidence. They want to get this message out to young people right before spring break. And with the shooting in St. Petersburg on Thursday, they say this message is more urgent than ever before. Just where the bullet hit her, it hit me in the stomach as well. It really hurt my feelings so bad because this is an innocent child sitting on her own front porch, doing nothing and all of a sudden shes hit in the stomach with a stray bullet, community activist Vivian Heyward said. Its a sad reality this group says they dont want to relive and they dont want anyone else to have to either. The group plans to hold similar events in Pinellas County in the coming weeks. Presidential hopeful Marco Rubio spoke to a crowd of about 200 supporters in Largo Saturday, trying to drum up last minute support before the primary that could make or break his campaign. "If I win Florida, I'll be the nominee," he said. "If I don't win Florida, it'll be much harder. I actually believe whoever wins in Florida has the inside track to be the nominee." In a one-on-one interview, Rubio said hes uncertain what a loss would mean for his campaign but is confident he will walk away with a victory in Florida. Rubio also stated he was unsure if he would support Donald Trump if he were to become the Republican nominee. Rubio had strong words to say about Fridays Trump Rally in Chicago, which was canceled due to violence between supporters and protesters. Those guys that disrupted the event, what they did was irresponsible," Rubio said. "But I think Donald Trump, and all of us in American politics, need re-examine how we talk about politics, because when you know that people are angry and frustrated and instead of addressing that frustration you manipulate it and incite it so they vote for you, there are consequences." Supporters believe Rubio is the only candidate who can speak out and deliver on his promises. They said he is the biggest hope for the nations future. "He's sincere, he's youthful, he's vigorous, he's an idealist, and I think he has time and energy on his side," supporter Ron Ogden said. The GOP candidate also met with supporters in Hudson, Tampa and Lakeland on Saturday before heading up to Pensacola for another rally. Rubio's campaign is also urging people to vote early on Saturday. For many parts of Florida, this is the last day for in-person early voting. Pensacola Rally with Marco Rubio 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. The Fish House 600 S Barracks St., Pensacola, FL 32502 For more information, click here The Other Mystery Creature Washing Up on Oregon Coast: Gooseneck Barnacles Published 03/11/2016 at 5:51 PM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Oregon Coast) Those weird little purple velella velella creatures aren't the only oddity being found on Oregon's beaches right now. More and more, logs and other debris are showing up covered in mysterious creatures that are paradoxically brightly colored and yet a dark shade of blue. (Photo: Gooseneck barnacles recently found on the north coast, courtesy Tiffany Boothe, Seaside Aquarium). They are called Pelagic Gooseneck barnacles (Lepas anatifera), and they exist entirely by attaching themselves to other things. In fact, they can't live without that. If the barnacle in its egg state doesn't attach itself to anything, it does not live. (At right: a log found by Boothe of Seaside Aquarium covered in barnacles - a wider version of the detailed shot at top). Tiffany Boothe of Seaside Aquarium explains that right now there are quite a lot of these objects showing up with creatures living on them, thanks to recent storm action. Logs are the most frequent find, but this type of barnacle is found making its home on ropes, garbage, and other debris. The term pelagic means in the open ocean, Boothe said. Along the Oregon coast, when the wind blows out of the west, marine debris which is floating close to shore washes up on the beach. With that in mind, you may want to take a closer look the next time you spot something washing in. Boothe said the gooseneck barnacle hooks onto hard surfaces via their flexible stalks. They can be found worldwide, drifting along on the oceans currents and feeding on plankton by filtering it out of the water with hair-like feeding tentacles called cirri. There are over 1,000 different species of barnacles world wide, Boothe said. Some have adapted to living in some extremely unique environments, such as the pelagic gooseneck barnacle, which lives exclusively on floating marine debris. Or the Coronula diadema barancle, which lives exclusively on Humpback whales. It's not uncommon to find smaller gooseneck barnacles living on larger ones. They make great city planners, apparently. Above: goosenecks living on a rope, courtesy Seaside Aquarium. Of course, living on debris means you're at the mercy of the winds and currents. There's no telling where you'll be living next, if you're a gooseneck barnacle. You could be floating along the waters of Russia, Japan or Hawaii one moment, and the next you're food for something with wings on a beach on the Oregon coast. Boothe said seagulls love to eat them, especially once they've stranded on land. Gooseneck barnacles were also found in abundance on the tsunami debris from Japan. The most notable example was the giant concrete dock that washed up at Newport's Agate Beach in 2012, which was about 90 percent covered in them. The other ten percent included a few unwanted species, which scientists are still worried about to this day. It's possible some kinds of invasive species may have gotten a foothold in the near-shore environment, and that experts just haven't found these populations yet. Another fascinating find was of a pink slipper in Cannon Beach a few years ago, also presumably part of the tsunami debris. After being brought to the Seaside Aquarium, Boothe found it covered with goosenecks on the inside. A weird bit of history about the science of studying goosenecks: there was a time when people actually thought a certain breed of geese came from these barnacles. Before it was known that birds migrate, a European species called the Barnacle Goose was never seen nesting, and given its similarity in color to the barnacles, folks of the Middle Ages and even later assumed that's where they came. It also didn't help that there were assumptions that trees already had barnacles on them when they fell into the ocean, since the barnacle was most often found on logs after being adrift in the ocean. Oregon Coast Lodgings for this - Where to eat - Maps and Virtual Tours Photos above courtesy Seaside Aquarium: a log covered in goosenecks and the pink slipper tsunami debris containing the creatures. Photo above by Terry Morse: the tsunami dock in Newport, 2012 More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted UPDATE: High Winds and Warnings Sunday on Oregon Coast, Seas 30 ft Published 03/11/2016 at 7:51 PM PDT - Updated 03/12/2016 at 3:51 PM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Oregon Coast) UPDATED: The coast is now under a high wind warning and a high surf advisory from now until Sunday at 10 p.m. Here we go again. The Oregon coast is now under a high wind warning for Sunday, with a likelihood of 60 mph gusts that afternoon, making chances good it will be elevated to a high wind warning. A surf warning was officially issued today by the National Weather Service (NWS) in Portland is predicting waves as high as 30 feet that day. (Photo: mammoth waves hit rocks off Arch Cape). The NWS issued the watch on Friday, saying south to southwest winds of around 40 to 50 mph are quite possible, along with gusts up to 60 or 70. The NWS said confidence is high. Strong winds are expected to start kicking on the coast and coast range on Sunday morning, with the hardest knocks coming in the afternoon. For mariners, there is a gale warning for Saturday and a storm watch on Sunday for offshore, which is telling of the kinds of conditions likely to hit the beaches. Then come the big waves. The NWS is predicting waves of 15 feet or more for Saturday, starting late tonight (Friday). Offshore winds will be in excess of 50 mph that day, while on the shoreline, Saturday will only see about 20 mph. Sunday is looking at combined seas of 25 feet at least, with the NWS saying there is a possibility of 30-foot seas. There is now officially a high surf advisory on the beaches. This means stay off the beaches and jetties during these events. Waves will still be considerably high on Monday at 17 feet, but later that night and Tuesday are predicted to drop below ten feet. The NWS said several storm fronts will push across the Pacific Northwest in the next several days, which means Portland and other inland towns will also get battered by winds and rain. There are some silver linings and blue skies behind these clouds, however. Important: see Beach Safety for Stormwatching Sunday will likely be the heaviest rain, with snow in the Cascades and the potential for strong winds across much of the local area, the NWS said. But it appears that mild, dry weather will return for the second half of next week. Oregon Coast Lodgings for this event - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours Below: photos from this past week's wild storm: Photo: Rock Your World Gallery Courtesy Tolovana Inn, Cannon Beach Photo courtesy Seaside Aquarium More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted Vermont has seen a dramatic increase in Medicaid hospital visits and payments, according to a VTDigger report. This finding was revealed as part of VTDigger's analysis of hospital use data for 2002 and 2013 the latest year data is available. The data is collected by the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, and published by the Vermont Department of Health. Here are seven findings from the analysis. 1. Annual Medicaid visits to rural hospitals climbed to 89,000 in 2013 from about 58,000, in 2002, VTDigger found. Medicaid visits to Burlington-based University of Vermont Medical Center, the largest hospital in the state, went from 17,000 to 20,000 during that time period. 2. Data shows Medicaid patients seeking care at a Vermont hospital are looking for outpatient treatment or going to the emergency room. 3. If Medicaid patients do stay overnight in the hospital, they are most often giving birth, dealing with a respiratory illness or addressing a mental health diagnosis. 4. VTDigger also found Medicaid patients are more likely to be women than men. Between 2002 and 2013, women represented about 56 percent of Medicaid patients who visited hospitals in Vermont. 5. Data from the Department of Vermont Health Access show the state tripled the amount it pays hospitals for inpatient and outpatient services between 2002 and 2013 from $79 million to $245.3 million. The numbers include any hospital Vermont has spent money at even out-of-state hospitals like Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. 6. Steven Costantino, the commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, told VTDigger the increase in overall Medicaid spending at hospitals is in line with national trends, and the level number of overall inpatient visits could indicate that more patients are preventing illnesses by visiting their primary care physicians. 7. Vermont Sen. Jane Kitchel (D-Caledonia) gave the publication other explanations for the increases. She told VTDigger new Medicaid patients who used to be uninsured may have higher health needs and need to use hospitals, or the increased outpatient costs could be related to hospitals that are expanding. Hospital CEO turnover in 2015 held steady at 18 percent, according to a recent report by the American College of Healthcare Executives. That's less than the record high of 20 percent in 2013, but equal to that reported in 2014 and still among the highest rates reported in the past two decades. "Our data show a continuation of the elevated CEO turnover rates we have seen over the past several years," Deborah J. Bowen, ACHE's president and CEO, said in a prepared statement. "The continuing trend of consolidation among organizations, the emergence of new models of care, retirement of leaders from the baby boomer era as well as movement of CEOs within health systems may all be contributing factors. The high level of change taking place in hospital C-suites underscores the importance of organizations having well-developed succession plans to manage changes in senior leadership roles to ensure success in todays environment." ACHE's CEO turnover rates are based on changes in an organization's CEO as reported to the American Hospital Association. According to the ACHE, the highest hospital CEO turnover rates in 2015 occurred in Missouri (30 percent), Washington, D.C. (29 percent), Alaska (28 percent), Nevada (27 percent) and Oregon (26 percent). The lowest hospital CEO turnover rates in 2015 were found in Michigan (12 percent), Illinois (12 percent), Maine (9 percent), Wisconsin (7 percent) and Puerto Rico (2 percent). More articles on leadership and management: 3 healthcare takeaways from the latest Democratic debate 8 hospital, health system CXOs to know Longtime Mercy Medical official dies A nine-month budget impasse has created an extremely challenging operating environment for Illinois hospitals, and healthcare leaders are feeling an enormous amount of pressure to keep their facilities afloat in such a difficult market. Tasked with addressing the financial problems and other issues plaguing healthcare organizations in the state, the Illinois Health and Hospital Association's 2016 advocacy agenda is full. The IHA, formed through the merger of the Illinois Hospital Association and Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council, officially launched Jan. 1. Representing more than 200 hospitals and health systems, the integrated organization is working hard to improve healthcare in Illinois. IHA President and CEO A.J. Wilhelmi is prepared to take on the tough issues facing Illinois hospitals. He began leading the IHA Jan. 1, but he isn't new to the healthcare industry. Prior to his current role, Mr. Wilhelmi served as the Illinois Hospital Association's chief government relations officer from 2012 to 2015. He also previously served in the Illinois Senate, representing the 43rd Senate District. During his tenure in the state Senate, Mr. Wilh elmi was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and vice chairman of the Senate Agriculture & Conservation Committee. Becker's Hospital Review recently caught up with Mr. Wilhelmi to get his insight on a number of issues, including the challenges facing Illinois hospitals. The state budget impasse is a huge concern for Illinois hospitals Regarding the budget impasse, Mr. Wilhelmi says it's putting hospitals in a difficult position. "The decisions Illinois hospitals may be forced to make service reductions, job reductions, putting projects on hold those are all very challenging decisions to make for hospital and health system leaders," he says. The IHA is focused on working with Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and lawmakers to get fiscal year 2016 and 2017 budgets in place. "At the end of the day, for our hospitals to continue to provide care to their patients and communities, there has to be sustainable, predictable and timely payment," says Mr. Wilhelmi. In Illinois, 41 percent of hospitals are operating in the red or at a very slim margin. "The challenges in the environment are very real," Mr. Wilhelmi says. Safety-net hospitals and facilities that serve vulnerable communities have been significantly impacted by the budget impasse. However, those hospitals are working diligently to continue to provide care. In addition to financial constraints presented by the standstill on the budget, Illinois hospitals are also faced with issues affecting hospitals nationwide, such as downward pressure from commercial payers and Medicare cuts. Despite the challenges, hospital leaders are dedicated to providing healthcare access to all Illinoisans. Mr. Wilhelmi says he's inspired by their commitment to remain pillars of healthcare in their communities. Hospital tax exemptions under fire in Illinois The potential loss of tax exemptions is another pressing issue Illinois hospitals are faced with. In January, an Illinois appellate court ruled that part of a law that allows nonprofit hospitals to avoid paying millions of dollars in property taxes is unconstitutional. The law at the center of the case was passed in 2012, and simply required a nonprofit hospital's charitable services to exceed its property tax liability to qualify for tax exemptions. The appeals court held that the law is unconstitutional because the Illinois constitution only allows lawmakers to exempt property "used exclusively" for "charitable purposes." The case is now headed to the Illinois Supreme Court, and Mr. Wilhelmi says the IHA is watching the issue very closely. The IHA will be submitting an amicus brief defending the constitutionality of the statute. Focus on quality improvement While 2016 appears to be a grim time for hospitals in Illinois, organizations in the state are still working to make positive changes in healthcare. As part of CMS' national Partnership for Patients campaign, the Illinois Hospital Association's Institute for Innovations in Care and Quality partnered with the American Hospital Association/Health Research and Education Trust on the Hospital Engagement Network a project focused on reducing patient harm and readmissions. From January 2012 through March 2015, the 100 Illinois hospitals that participated in HEN prevented 15,887 patient harms with an associated cost savings of $161.8 million. Last September, the Illinois Hospital Association teamed up with the Michigan Health & Hospital Association to launch a joint quality improvement program HEN 2.0. More than 200 hospitals in the two states have committed to participate in HEN 2.0. Mr. Wilhelmi is inspired by the work the hospitals have done through the program. "This motivates me to continue to support our hospitals," he says. After toying with the idea of compensating its board members for what was once considered a public service, Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital's board has decided not to move forward with the controversial plan, the Tampa Bay Times reports. The Tampa Bay Times broke news earlier this week that the nonprofit hospital's board of directors voted last fall 14-1 to compensate themselves, which drove the only member who voted against compensation, David A. Straz Jr., to quit the board of directors in protest. Board member Erika Wallace wanted her vote changed three months after the fact because a bad phone connection made her unable to hear the discussion, according to the report. Board chairman John A. Brabson Jr. rescinded the plan just two days after the initial report, according to the newspaper. "While I believe providing compensation to board members will become a recruiting tool in the future, the board believes this is not the right time to move in that direction," Mr. Brabson wrote in a statement, according to the Tampa Bay Times. "After talking to the hospital's senior leadership, the board has determined it is in the best interest of the hospital to no longer consider board compensation." The board stipend was considered because a compensation consultant advised the board there was a "small but growing trend" to do so, according to the report. Mr. Brabson said the intent was for the compensation to fuel recruitment efforts beyond the Tampa Bay area, according to the report. More articles on leadership and management: American Nurses Association launches new umbrella organization Longtime Mercy Medical official dies Consumers value ease of use over trust when seeking healthcare information Milwaukee-based Ministry Health Care, part of Ascension Wisconsin, has reached a tentative agreement to sell Ministry Saint Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield, Wis., to Marshfield Clinic Health System, according to a Milwaukee Business Journal report. Here are four things to know about the proposed deal. 1. The preliminary agreement calls for the sale of Ministry Saint Joseph's, a tertiary medical center with more than 500 beds. It also calls for Ministry Health Care to acquire full ownership of The Diagnostic & Treatment Center in Weston, Wis., from the Marshfield Clinic, according to the report. 2. Marshfield Clinic President and CEO Susan Turney, MD, noted the potential benefits of a hospital sale. "Taking ownership of the hospital means we can restore services, significantly reduce diversions and maintain jobs that might otherwise leave our community," she said, according to the report. She added, "We anticipate no major disruption in employment for most Saint Joseph's employees, both during the transition and after the sale." 3. In the meantime, the tentative deal puts the Marshfield Clinic's plans to build a new $175 million hospital in Marshfield on hold, according to Marshfield Clinic. 4. Financial details of the preliminary agreement were not disclosed to the Milwaukee Business Journal. More articles on healthcare industry transactions: 5 recent hospital transactions and partnerships Mayo Clinic to cut ties with Georgia hospital CHS acquires majority ownership of 2 IU Health hospitals Republicans continue to press the administration and HHS about what they say are illegal payments to insurers as part of the Affordable Care Act reinsurance program, according to The Hill. Here are five things to know about the issue. 1. The reinsurance program is designed to offset the costs of insuring sicker enrollees in the early years of the ACA. In 2014, the program was supposed to collect $10 billion from payers to distribute among those plans with high-cost enrollees, and collect another $2 billion for the U.S. Treasury, according to the report. 2. Not enough money was collected in 2014. The administration prioritized payments to insurers in the hopes of keeping consumer premiums down. No payments were made to the U.S. Treasury in the first year, according to the report. HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing earlier this month that this decision was published for comment and no concerns were raised at that time, according to the report. 3. However, Republicans now say this is in conflict with plain reading of the ACA. They point to part of the bill that states the $2 billion "shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States and may not be used for the program established under this section [i.e. the payments to insurers]," according to the report. Concerns have been raised at various Senate hearings and this week Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote a letter to Secretary Burwell calling the decision "unacceptable," according to the report. 4. HHS stands by its decision, as do other ACA supporters. Tim Jost of Lexington, Va.-based Washington and Lee University told The Hill he thought the decision was reasonable given the primary purpose of the reinsurance program is to even the playing field for insurers, not collect taxes. He said they were likely interpreting the law in a way that makes it work, according to the report. 5. Republicans from the Energy and Commerce committee are claiming the decision is due to a conflict of interest. They are making a link between the payments and former head of CMS, Marilyn Tavenner, who now is head of America's Health Insurance Plans, according to the report. Both Secretary Burwell and AHIP declined to comment on this matter, according to the report. More articles on legal and regulatory issues: Senate bill on opioid abuse passes Medical innovation bill held up by disagreements over NIH funding: 5 things to know Ex-CFO of troubled Florida hospital files lawsuit over CEO's harassment, threats Record high wait times at U.K. hospitals have acute care physicians warning that patient lives could be at risk, according to The Guardian. The National Health Service has admitted it missed almost all its wait time targets in January for the first time in England hospitals, according to the report. This means in January more than 212,000 patients in the emergency room were not treated within four hours, more than 17,000 did not have a scan within six weeks and more than 51,500 waited on a trolley over four hours for a hospital bed, according to the report. The data also showed cancer patients did not get urgent treatment in standard times and ambulance services failed to get vehicles to some patients in life-or-death emergencies, according to the report. These are the worst numbers the NHS has posted since it starting reporting, according to the report. Conditions are so bad, Dr. Mark Holland, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, has said inadequate funding and recruitment challenges have plunged the NHS into a state of "eternal winter," according to the report. "The ability to deliver acute medical care is reaching crisis point and any other crisis affecting our society would be acknowledged and addressed. The volume of patients and disease severity is so much that we are now functioning at the edge of what is possible," Dr. Holland said, according to The Guardian. "The NHS is running out of steam." However, England's Department of Health said Dr. Holland is exaggerating the current issue at NHS, especially his warnings of possible deaths. NHS England said its emergency rooms saw a 10.1 percent increase in attendance in January compared to last year and a 4.6 percent increase in patients who needed to be admitted to the hospital. It also marked record numbers of hospital bed days due to delayed discharges, according to the report. "Against this backdrop, it's not surprising hospitals saw a dip in their A&E [emergency room] performance, and it is a credit to all those working in emergency care that we are still admitting, treating and discharging almost nine out of 10 patients within four hours," said Richard Barker, NHS' interim national director of commissioning operations and information, according to The Guardian. More articles on quality: CDC publishes annual report on cancer incidence, mortality in US: 6 takeaways Millennials, physicians discuss patient experience in GE Healthcare survey: 9 findings 5 highlights from the CDC's annual HAI progress report To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below Next Thursday, Christians in Ireland and throughout the world commemorate St Patrick, a key figure in bringing the gift of the Christian faith to Ireland. Two extant historical documents give us some insight into St Patrick's life and ministry - The Confession and The Letter To Coroticus. The latter is a brief text addressed to a cruel and merciless individual, Coroticus, along with the band of soldiers he commanded. Coroticus and his followers were responsible for murdering a number of new Christians whom St Patrick himself had baptised and confirmed. St Patrick's letter describes how the sacred oil of Chrism was still visible on the foreheads of the slain. Other Christians had been captured by Coroticus and sold into slavery. St Patrick fiercely condemns the evil deeds of Coroticus and his men. He demands the release of the believers captured and enslaved. He warns the violent and merciless men that their immortal souls are in grave danger and he holds out hope for them if they will repent. In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, we are recalling St Patrick as an apostle of Divine Mercy. Merciful love is at the heart of the timeless gospel. We see it beautifully manifested in the gospel heard by many Christians this weekend - Jesus' intervention on behalf of the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:1-11). St Patrick, in the Ireland of the fifth century, courageously faced murderous brutality with the truth of the gospel. In the 21st century, faced with many assaults on human dignity and freedom, the immutable gospel of life and love - the same truth proclaimed by St Patrick - continues to guide and equip us for our mission. As spiritual children of St Patrick, let us face the challenges of 2016, with unchanging Christian truth. For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). A veteran Ulster Unionist constituency worker from east Belfast intends to run against the party as an independent in the upcoming Assembly elections. Maggie Hutton, who is still a personal assistant to UUP MLA Andy Allen, accused the party of having nothing to offer working-class voters and claimed she was one of many "disillusioned" with all the unionist parties. Last night, Mr Allen said he was "disappointed" by Ms Hutton's comments and accused her of not being "fully open" in her dealings with him. "I was born in Knocknagoney and raised in the Albertbridge Road area of east Belfast, so I don't think I need any lessons in the needs of working-class unionists," he added. Ms Hutton, who was due to launch her campaign today, said a number of constituents had asked her to run against the UUP and DUP after anger over the pact between the parties at last year's Westminster elections. "I deal with constituents every day in the office, and people feel let down by the UUP," she added. "Before, I would have encouraged people to vote for them, but they feel there is no party within unionism that represents them." The 42-year-old was quoted during a 2011 debate on interface violence saying the UVF was the only group capable of protecting the Protestant community from Catholic gangs. However, she said yesterday she believed there was no place for paramilitary violence. "I was misquoted in 2011," Ms Hutton added. "I do not agree with paramilitary violence. There is no need for it. "In relation to loyalist paramilitary groups, they are part of our community, but there needs to be a process to bring these people forward so we can leave the troubled days behind." The former community worker, who has been employed by the UUP for 13 years, was an assistant to Sir Reg Empey and Michael Copeland before Mr Allen replaced Mr Copeland. She claimed that the UUP was aware of her intention to run against the party but had agreed to keep her employed as an office manager. "I am disillusioned with the UUP and so are many other people," Ms Hutton said. "The seat is there for the taking now Peter Robinson is not running. Naomi Long has quite a big support base, but in terms of working-class unionists, there is no representation. They feel totally disconnected from politics." However, Mr Allen hit back and said: "I am committed to public service. When I could no longer serve in my first choice of career, the Royal Irish Regiment, due to being injured in Afghanistan, I found a new route. "The Ulster Unionist Party team, right through from volunteers and activists to councillors and MLAs, has worked hard for east Belfast down through the years and will fight hard for the opportunity to continue to represent the people of east Belfast in the next Assembly mandate. "Myself and the Ulster Unionist Party team are committed to serving and engaging with the people of East Belfast, working hard for each business, family and community, delivering solutions and not problems." A picture taken by one of the customers of the interior, which hosts several eateries It could only happen in our wee country. Where else but Northern Ireland would the opening of a new motorway service station - which was designed as a respite from the rigours of the road - actually add to the traffic jams. Not only has the Applegreen facility on the M1 out of Belfast been blamed for making the already snail-paced tailbacks on the motorway even worse, but it has also clearly become a must-see tourist destination since it opened on Thursday afternoon. That resulted in chaos on both sides of the M1 yesterday morning during the inaptly named rush hour as hundreds of motorists slowed down even more than usual - if that were possible - to catch a glimpse of the service station, which was causing a bigger than normal bottleneck between Lisburn and Blacks Road. It got so bad that the Good Morning Ulster radio programme broadcast appeals from its travel department for drivers to stop rubbernecking. The motorists' curiosity sparked incredulity on social media, where one bemused poster tweeted: "Commuters slow down to look at NI's new service station. Some people clearly don't get out much." Another said: "It's only a petrol station." In truth, Applegreen is more than that. It is, in fact, more like a giant food emporium with a veritable feast of outlets including Burger King, Bakewell, Subway, Lavazza, Chopstix and what is one of its main attractions, Greggs. Yesterday it appeared that hundreds of people wanted to take a bite out of Applegreen for themselves. The huge car park was packed throughout the day, but instead of fanfaring its first full day of trading the Applegreen company, which is based in the Republic, managed to shoot itself in the foot with something of a PR disaster. At first the local management said it would welcome a visit from the Belfast Telegraph, but a video journalist was turned away - apparently on orders from south of the border. A PR for Applegreen in Dublin refused to put up a spokesman to talk about the astonishing response to the M1 initiative, citing the fact that the company's financial results were due for release on Monday. She said that in the "closed period" until then no one from Applegreen could basically talk about anything. The spokeswoman also said that any previous coverage about the Applegreen opening on the M1 shouldn't have happened, which only whetted your intrepid reporter's appetite for a trip to the service station to see what all the fuss was about. Driving down the M1 from Lisburn didn't provide much of an eye-opener about what lay inside the complex. A high wooden fence makes it impossible to see anything of any note and makes it even more of a mystery why drivers took their foot off the gas to see what they could see yesterday morning. Approaching Applegreen from the Belfast direction, it was immediately obvious that the Northern Irish mania for anything remotely new had accelerated into top gear, causing great mirth on the telephone for a relative in England, who couldn't believe that people here were so excited by the opening of a new service station. "We've got thousands of them," she said. "Yes, but this is only our second one on a motorway," I countered unconvincingly, adding that the opening of the M1 itself in 1962 didn't create anything remotely close to the same excitement as Applegreen. Only a handful of spaces were available in the massive car park and inside the place was packed, with queues at all the food counters. The businesses were all cleaning up, and all around them the new-fangled staff were busy cleaning up too, meanwhile taking anxious looks over their shoulders at a gaggle of sharp-suited Applegreen executives, who were checking the place out for any teething problems. "What do you think?" one of the bosses asked me as I snatched a nosey at a 'quiet lounge' upstairs, which had a library of books ranging from Jane Austen to travel guides. Staff were handing out free samples of hot drinks to visitors, and downstairs actor Michael Lavery - who was travelling home to Banbridge from Belfast - gave the new Applegreen production a rave review. "I think a service station on the M1 is long overdue. "I had an excellent Chinese meal and it was all freshly cooked," said Michael, who knows his grub, having recently led the popular Belfast Bred tours around the city's food stores and eateries. Michael's father Colin had no complaints either: "It's like a breath of fresh air, really. "It's well laid out and it has everything you could want." Niall Gribben from Hilltown, Co Down, was relaxing on his way home from a mart in Ballymena. He said: "I know a lot of people from Belfast question the wisdom of having a service station like this, because they'd no sooner be on the M1 than they'd be turning off it again to come here, but for me it's a perfect stopping-off point." Not everyone had pulled into the Applegreen service station just for a break. "I'm here for a recce to see what is on offer," said Peter Beattie from east Belfast. "I'm a big fan of Greggs' pies, after having lived in England for a long time, and the one I've just had was every bit as good as across the water." Outside the enormous building, long queues were also building up yesterday at the petrol and diesel pumps. But a children's play area was unsurprisingly empty in the rain. Applegreen executives know that the novelty value of the service station near Lisburn may wane somewhat, but they're still confident that the M1 venture - and one which is planned for the other side of the carriageway - will repeat the success of its first 6m northern service station on the M2 between Glengormley and Templepatrick. An identical development will open on the opposite southbound section of the M2 by the end of this year. Another smaller Applegreen unit opened recently on the A26 Crankill dual carriageway on the former site of the Fort Royal Inn, between Ballymena and Coleraine. The company now has more than 175 service stations in the UK and the Republic. Forensic experts examine under the vehicle which was targeted A prison officer injured after bomb explodes under van om the Woodstock Road in Belfast. Army Bomb Disposal at at the scene. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press The scene of the explosion that left a prison officer injured Armed police guarded the courtroom as a man was charged with attempting to murder a prison officer in Northern Ireland. Christopher Alphonsos Robinson, 45, yawned and refused to stand as he was accused of the East Belfast bombing on March 4. Officers trained for dealing with riots stood between a crowd of his supporters and the main body of the city centre court room. The victim, a married father-of-three aged 52, required surgery for severe leg injuries after an explosive device detonated under the van he was driving. A dissident republican group calling itself the New IRA, which opposes the peace process, claimed to have carried out the bombing. Police have warned there could be more attacks ahead of this month's centenary of the Easter Rising which marked Irish rebellion against Britain. They said they had prevented a number of murder bids since last week's blast. The threat to members of the security forces in Northern Ireland is severe from gunmen opposed to the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement which largely ended decades of the Troubles. Senior officers have said there are several hundred active dissidents. A sizeable group of his friends applauded Robinson, from Aspen Park in Dunmurry in West Belfast, and jeered at the judge at Belfast Magistrates' Court as the defendant was led away in handcuffs. He was charged after undergoing 16 interviews, his lawyer told the courtroom. He said "no evidence was actually put" to the defendant to link him to the attack. The suspect was also accused of possession of an explosive with the intention to endanger life. No bail application was made and he was remanded in custody by district judge Harry McKibbin after a detective sergeant connected him to the charges. The accused is due to appear via video link before the same court on Friday April 1 for a review hearing. Businessman Frank Cushnahan is launching defamation proceedings against unnamed publications next week, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal. Lawyers for the ex-Nama adviser are also pursuing the BBC over claims made in a Spotlight programme last month in which Mr Cushnahan was filmed referring to a finder's fee he was due over the sale of the Nama portfolio in Northern Ireland. Mr Cushnahan's lawyer Paul Tweed of Johnsons Solicitors said BBC NI had been "put on notice" following the programme. Mr Cushnahan has consistently denied any wrongdoing. The broadcaster had until yesterday to respond to a letter from the lawyers questioning the content of the programme. A spokeswoman for the BBC said it "stands by the programme". "As far as we are aware, no proceedings have been issued at this time," the spokeswoman added. Mr Tweed said: "I would confirm that the BBC have been put on notice in relation to serious defamatory and other issues arising from the covert filming, editing process and commentary in their Spotlight broadcast." Proceedings are to be launched next week against unidentified publications following other claims about Mr Cushnahan's alleged involvement in the 1bn sale of assets to Cerberus. Gareth Graham, who worked with Mr Cushnahan between 2005 and 2008, is also believed to be in the businessman's sights over statements about his former fellow company director. Mr Graham, whose family set up the Sean Graham chain of bookmakers, had previously accused Mr Cushnahan of being "intent on destroying our businesses after he left". In evidence to Stormont's finance and personnel committee last year, Mr Graham linked Mr Cushnahan with a decision by Bank of Ireland to put his companies into Nama. Nama later sold its loan portfolio to Cerberus - and Mr Cushnahan has been accused of being in line for a fixer's fee over setting up the deal. He had earlier served as an adviser to the Northern Ireland Advisory Committee of Nama. Mr Graham told the finance committee during the hearing last year that Cerberus had been "ruthless, unjust and unreasonable" in its dealings with his companies, putting his firms into administration. After a long legal battle, Mr Graham yesterday apologised for the allegations he made about Cerberus but said he "reserves his position in relation to other entities connected with Project Eagle". It is understood that Mr Cushnahan regards his case as having been strengthened by the withdrawal of Mr Graham's comments about Cerberus. John Gordon, a top lawyer who regularly works with the US company, said he believes the firm is "tough but fair". "They provide solutions that the banks don't," added Mr Gordon from Napier Solicitors. It is understood that Cerberus started to tighten up on its processes for making deals with clients following the start of the Graham court action. People who did make deals with Cerberus include developer Paddy Kearney. Mr Gordon said: "I don't share the concerns about Cerberus. They have bought a property and are there to get a return on their purchases. In my dealings, they have been pragmatic. "Yes they have inflicted pain, but they make decisions - which the banks have not been doing up until now. "Any property speculators and developers in Northern Ireland can do business with Cerberus. They are tough negotiators, but they are prepared to do business, and that's the main point." Daithi McKay, chairman of the finance and personnel committee, which called Mr Graham to give evidence last year, said: "It's clear that whatever issues there were between Cerberus and Gareth Graham have now been resolved, and it's welcome that a resolution has been reached." Asked whether Mr Graham should be called back in light of his retraction, Mr McKay replied: "That would be a matter for the incoming finance committee." A spokesman for Cerberus said: "Mr Graham's comments are self-explanatory and consistent with everything Cerberus Capital Management has said on these matters to date." The fund's purchase of the Nama portfolio marked the biggest investment by a private company in Northern Ireland. The firm's chairman is former US vice-President Dan Quayle, while the firm's chairman is ex-US Treasury Secretary John W Snow. A source familiar with Cerberus' work said the apology was "a total climbdown". The PSNI yesterday would not confirm newspaper reports it was investigating Mr Cushnahan over allegations of fraud, specifically alleged offences of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception and conspiracy to defraud. It is understood Mr Graham was contacted in October, and no charges have been brought. It is also understood that DUP members of Stormont's finance committee effectively vetoed a call for a powerful commission of inquiry to be established to probe the Nama land deal. Representatives of other parties, including Sinn Fein and the SDLP, wanted to make an official recommendation that the next Assembly should set up a commission, but the suggestion was voted down during a closed session of the committee held just last Wednesday. Instead, the committee's progress report on its Nama inquiry, published on Wednesday, recommended only that the next committee - to be appointed after the May Assembly election - "makes a decision on concluding the review early in the next mandate". A committee source told the Belfast Telegraph: "A commission of inquiry would have much stronger powers to compel witnesses to attend and would be able, for example, to conduct an audit of the business interests and activities of Frank Cushnahan, with regard to his involvement with Nama and any connection he has had to any Stormont department. "We can't wait for the National Crime Agency investigation to run its course. The committee had a briefing with them and got no certainty on how long it will run. It could be five months or five years. "How long is a piece of string? "Rather than the incoming committee gathering more evidence in a piecemeal fashion, a full commission of inquiry would air it all thoroughly and look at everything in detail. It would restore public confidence and intention to get clarity on the Nama deal." Nama last night criticised the report published by the committee on its hearings into Project Eagle. The report said Nama had been "unhelpful" in not giving oral evidence to the inquiry. In a letter to Sinn Fein committee chairman Mr McKay yesterday, Nama chairman Frank Daly said he did not accept the body's findings. Mr Daly added it had always been Nama's position that it was accountable to the Republic's Oireachtas. He also took issue with the report's claim that Nama should have suspended the sales process after learning of a proposed fee for Mr Cushnahan. Mr Daly said the inquiry had not considered the risks such a decision would have caused to Nama. Investors might have been reluctant to invest time and money in carrying out due diligence and bidding on other loan or asset portfolios. He also said the abandonment of the sale could have had very costly consequences for Nama and the recovery of the Irish market. The devastated girlfriend of a Lithuanian man whose body was found in a stream in Portadown has vowed to fight until she finds out what happened to him. Edita Matij spent almost a month desperately searching for Eimantas Gerdvilas, who went missing on February 12 and whose body was found in a stream in the Co Armagh town last Sunday. Last night, she said she was "sad, devastated and down" over the death, which police are treating as suspicious. The couple, who lived in the Killicomaine area of Portadown, had been together for four years. Edita said that they both lived to travel and enjoyed a full life. Paying tribute to Eimantas, devastated Edita added: "I feel sad, devastated, down and can't cope. I'm tired from all this, but I still have a lot to do. "Eimantas was a very quiet man who believed in God and had a huge character. We had just a few real friends, which is why we travelled a lot to see more of the world." The 31-year-old's body was found in a stream in the Mourneview/Thomas Street area of Portadown on Sunday morning. Police subsequently arrested three men, two aged 28 and the other 30, and a woman aged 35 in relation to the death. All were later released on bail pending further inquiries. A 17-year-old woman was also arrested and is to be reported to the Public Prosecution Service for withholding information. The arrests came as a shock to Edita, who said she did not know any of the people who have been questioned. "I still don't know what might have happened, but only can suggest that he went to the wrong place at the wrong time," she added. "He did not know any of those people." Eimantas had been missing for almost a month, and a desperate Edita had appealed on social media for help in finding her beloved partner. Last night she vowed to continue to campaign until she discovers the truth about what happened to Eimantas. "I will not give up," she said. "I know for sure that it will be hard, but I will do my very best to find the truth and justice. "I'm not the type of person to forget what happened - I'm the type of person to fight for the truth. If I fall off, I get up. "I will not let all this be forgotten. "I loved my other half, and I knew him well enough to know this was not some kind of accident." The family of former Ulster Unionist Party leader Lord Molyneaux are said to be dismayed and upset at claims by an English Right-wing activist about his relationship with the war hero peer who died last year. Christopher Luke, who is gay, this week placed a memorial notice for Lord Molyneaux in the Belfast Telegraph which said: "I grieve for you... you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women. I love you more today than I did yesterday, but less than I will tomorrow, my dear Jim, your eternal protege, Chrissie." Further Reading Read More The family's anguish was added to by the fact that the notice was placed on the first anniversary of Mr Molyneaux's death. Last night senior unionist sources cast doubt on claims by Mr Luke about his relationship with Lord Molyneaux, with one of his closest political friends saying he had never even seen the two men together. The Belfast Telegraph can also reveal that Mr Luke (48) was expelled from the Orange Order following what he at first described as a "personality clash", but later admitted was sparked by his publication of the home address of former UUP leader David Trimble. It is also understood that Mr Luke has a sideline as the author of gay corporal punishment fiction, and writes under the name 'Clansman Chris'. Mr Luke did not deny the claim, saying only that it was "a private matter". But an associate of his said: "Christopher is something of an attention-seeker and after the story broke in a newspaper he spoke on radio of brotherly love." Lord Molyneaux's shocked family only learned that Mr Luke had gone public about his claims of a 30-year relationship with the lifelong bachelor from media reports. A source close to the family said: We're very disappointed he was on the airwaves. "A few cursory enquiries by the broadcasters might have negated the need for this." Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph last night after a round of media interviews, Mr Luke, who lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, said he had no regrets about going public about his claimed links to Lord Molyneaux. "Even when dear Jim was alive I would refer to him as my much-loved mentor and close companion, so I have no regrets about saying what I have," he added. "Jim Molyneaux gave outstanding service to the United Kingdom in general and Northern Ireland in particular. "I cannot begin to put into words my admiration and respect for all that he did." He described the coverage of his links to Lord Molyneaux as "a bombshell" for the late peer's family. "They knew how close I was to Jim. In fact, I would often call upon them before visiting Jim at the Massereene Nursing Home." Asked about why he left the Orange Order, Mr Luke cited "personal reasons". Pressed on the matter, he said there had been "personality clashes" with other members of the Grand Orange Lodge of England. Pressed further, he admitted he had been expelled for printing David Trimble's home address in a newsletter he published. DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson, who was a friend of Lord Molyneaux for many years, told the Belfast Telegraph last night: "Jim Molyneaux was an upstanding, decent and honest man, and in all my time of knowing him there was nothing that suggested any kind of relationship with Christopher Luke, though he would have known of Christopher because he is prolific in writing letters to MPs about Northern Ireland. "I'm also aware from my contacts within the Orange Order that Christopher Luke's membership of the institution was ended some time ago in a less than amicable way. He is certainly someone who would not be highly regarded amongst members of the Orange Institution in England. "Many people that knew Lord Molyneaux well will be disappointed that his good name is being undermined in this way. He had a long and distinguished career and served both the nation as a war hero and the community as a leader. "When he was an MP and later a peer, I would have been at hundreds of meetings with Lord Molyneaux in London and Northern Ireland and I do not ever recall seeing Lord Molyneaux and Christopher Luke together." Ulster Unionist councillor Jeffrey Dudgeon - a lifelong campaigner for gay rights - said that Mr Luke had told him the same story about three or four years ago. Mr Dudgeon added that while he doubted there was a romantic or sexual relationship between the two men, this was a tale of love and affection. The councillor went on to say that men who came out as gay later in life sometimes say or do things they later regret in the relief at finally being openly gay. "People when they come out can behave like that, they can be proud and enthusiastic and some older men can even behave like teenagers," Mr Dudgeon told this newspaper. Lord Molyneaux never publicly indicated he was gay during his lifetime. "Each person has their own decision to make when they operate in life," Mr Dudgeon added. "Lord Molyneaux was a quiet man in life. It is important that people's reputations are defended and protected, but in death it is for historians to consider all aspects of their life, personal life as well." Former MP, Lord Ken Maginnis, hailed "justice at its best" as a judge dismissed driving charges against him. The former Ulster Unionist was in court yesterday accused of driving his Honda without a licence or insurance on May 5 last year. But District Judge Desmond Perry threw out the charges as the sole witness, DVLA chief executive Paul Duffy, said he could not see who was driving Lord Maginnis' car at the time. At Belfast Magistrates' Court on Friday, Mr Duffy explained he reported Lord Maginnis to the police following a meeting with him at DVLA headquarters on Corporation Street, Belfast. Mr Duffy said he saw the 78-year-old leave the building and get into a burgundy-coloured car through the driver's door. He added he saw a woman sitting in the passenger seat and that there was no one else in the car, which reversed and drove out the main gate and then onto Corporation Street. Mr Duffy then reported Lord Maginnis to police because he believed he did not possess a valid driving licence. The former UUP MP had previously rejected requests by the DVLA to supply medical records so they could renew his licence. However, in his statement of evidence, Mr Duffy could not say definitively that he saw the former Fermanagh and South Tyrone politician actually driving the vehicle. Stating his intention to dismiss the case, Judge Perry said that he was hidebound by Mr Duffy's statement as it was the entirety of the evidence against Lord Maginnis. A prosecution lawyer argued there was no one else who could have driven the vehicle and there could be no other explanation other than the car driving itself. However, Judge Perry said that Mr Duffy could not say for certain who was in control of the vehicle. He added that the sole witness was asking the court to conclude that Lord Maginnis was driving the car but said he could not reach this conclusion based on his statement. Lord Maginnis, who represented himself, told the court he was there not just for himself but on behalf of all pensioners he claimed were being "exploited". Speaking after the conclusion of the case, he told the Belfast Telegraph that it was a great day for the justice system. "I'm pleased - I have seen justice at its best," he said. I appealed to the minister (of the environment) over the 22 months, during which time Mr Duffy tried to prevent me going about my daily business." A nurse who was arrested and held in a police cell overnight for taking six painkillers from her hospital's medicine cabinet says her life has been destroyed A nurse who was arrested and held in a police cell overnight for taking six painkillers from her hospital's medicine cabinet says her life has been destroyed. The single mother-of-two was caught on a secretly installed camera removing six Co-Codamol tablets and two sleeping pills from the cabinet at the South West Acute Hospital while she was on duty. She said she needed them to ease the pain of her broken foot and had intended to replenish them when she had the chance to collect a prescription from her pharmacist. Within an hour of removing the pills police arrived at the hospital in the Western Trust area to arrest her on suspicion of theft and possession of a class B drug. The 47-year-old was taken to Enniskillen PSNI station, where she was fingerprinted, searched, questioned and then held overnight. Her home and car were searched by officers. She was released the following day without charge. However, a file is being prepared for the Public Prosecution Service. The nurse of 13 years, who asked to remain anonymous as she has yet to tell her elderly parents about the case, has been suspended without pay by the Western Trust pending the outcome of the criminal investigation. Her registration has also been suspended by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which sent three representatives from London to question her following her arrest. "This has ruined my life. I just feel like I am being hung out to dry," she said. "I don't understand why this could not have been dealt with internally." She was on duty on January 8 when she took the tablets. She claimed she had not had time before her shift to collect her prescription, so decided to "borrow" some to help with the pain in her foot, which she had recently broken. "The evening it happened, my whole world just imploded," she said. "I was on duty when the police arrived and arrested me at 5.20pm. They kept me in the police car outside the police station in Enniskillen for an hour-and-a-half. I wasn't allowed to call anyone. I couldn't let my children know what was happening or where I was. I had never been in a police station before in my life. "They took me in and took my fingerprints. They put me in a cell. You see when they close that door, it is just horrendous. I was sitting there in my nurse's uniform." The woman added: "I had to sign something to let them search my house and my car. I think about six of them turned up at my house. My children were there. "I just can't believe all of this. My children are traumatised. It is having a horrible effect on my son and daughter." She said the fallout from the incident had left her with severe depression and anxiety. She is now on antidepressants and is to undergo counselling. "I just feel this should not have been dealt with in such a severe way. I just don't understand it. I have never been in trouble in my life and I gave my all to my job. I love nursing and I just don't know what to do or where to turn," she said. The Western Health and Social Care Trust refused to discuss the case. A spokeswoman said: "The trust does not comment on individual employment matters." The PSNI said: "A 47-year-old female was arrested in the Irvinestown Road area of Enniskillen on January 8 on suspicion of theft and possession of a class B controlled drug. "She was interviewed and subsequently released pending a report to the Public Prosecution Service." Police prevent four planned dissident republican attacks for every one the extremists manage to pull off, a senior police commander has claimed Police prevent four planned dissident republican attacks for every one the extremists manage to pull off, a senior police commander has claimed. The officer leading the fight against the violent renegades said a hardcore of veteran terrorists were currently directing hundreds of active dissidents in their campaign of violence. Will Kerr, assistant chief constable with the PSNI, added the dissidents' widening attack capabilities, ranging from car bombs to rocket-propelled grenades, were "deeply concerning". But he stressed that their activities needed to be put in "perspective" and insisted there was no likelihood of a return to the widespread violence seen during the Troubles. Mr Kerr, who emphasised the need for more community help to thwart the dissident threat, also said there was no evidence that loyalist paramilitaries were planning to re-engage in conflict in response to dissident actions. The overview from the head of the PSNI's serious crime branch comes amid warnings from the police that dissidents are hell-bent on marking the forthcoming centenary of the Easter Rising by killing security force members in Northern Ireland. Last week, a 52-year-old prison officer required surgery after a dissident bomb detonated under the van he was driving in east Belfast. "We stop three or four attacks for every one that gets through," Mr Kerr said. "That is a broad comparator but it is a reasonably accurate one as well. "We stop the vast majority of attacks. We are not in any way complacent about that and never will be complacent. "There are a few hundred active DRs (dissident republicans) who are involved in active dissident republican operations. "But there would be a much smaller number - most of whom would have very significant terrorism experience - who are involved in directing terrorism and in the leadership of these groups as well. "These DR groups are dangerous, but we need to keep a bit of perspective around them as well. "They are not in the same scale in terms of numbers and capability as terrorist campaigns we have experienced in the past. "It's not the same pace of attacks and it's not the same volume of attacks. It's very unlikely and it won't return to the scale and pace of attacks in the past. He added: "These groups have very limited community support and traction - it just isn't there. "Despite their protestations and public statements that they do have support, they very clearly do not - certainly not within republican communities. "They have no strategy, no rationale, no objectives. It's an entirely futile campaign where violence of itself seems to be an end of itself." There should be a vote on the reunification of Ireland if the UK leaves the EU, Martin McGuinness said yesterday. The Deputy First Minister said an exit would be against the wishes of the Irish people. "Such a negative development would represent a political and economic game-changer," he added. "Ireland's place, north and south, is in Europe and leading change in Europe. If Britain votes to leave the European Union, that could have huge implications for the island of Ireland and, given all the predictions, would run counter to the democratic wishes of the Irish people. "If there is a vote in Britain to leave the EU, there is a democratic imperative to provide Irish citizens with the right to vote in a border poll to end partition and to retain a role within the EU. "I have proposed to Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers that, given the enormous significance of these issues, the British Government now gives a firm commitment to an immediate border poll in the event that Britain votes to leave the European Union." The DUP are the only large party in Northern Ireland to come out in favour of a Brexit. Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP are campaigning to remain in Europe. The referendum deciding the UK's membership will be held on June 23. Paul Bramley, 28, originally from Hull, was one of those killed (FCO) Lawyers representing British families bereaved by the Germanwings air crash have urged accident investigators to make clear recommendations to improve aviation safety. Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashed in the French Alps on March 24 last year killing 150 people. A probe found evidence suggesting co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane after locking the pilot out of the cockpit. It emerged that Lubitz had previously been treated for depression, and among information given to the families was that he had seen 41 doctors in recent years but under German law none was able to alert his employers to his state of mind. Investigators are due to publish their report into the crash and t he specialist aviation law team at Irwin Mitchell, who are representing British families, say they want to see " important lessons learned". French accident investigation agency BEA will release its final report on Sunday. Irwin Mitchell say they hope it will feature recommendations to improve aviation safety including i mproved checks on the health of pilots and co-pilots, both physical and mental. They want recommendations about guidance on access to the cockpit mid-flight. The lawyers have also called for transparency and disclosure of medical records and d etails of the involvement of the US flight school where the co-pilot was trained. Paul Bramley, 28, originally from Hull, was one of three Britons who died in the tragedy. The other British victims were Martyn Matthews, 50, from Wolverhampton, and seven-month-old Julian Pracz-Bandres, from Manchester, who died alongside his mother, Spanish-born Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, 37. Jim Morris, an expert aviation lawyer at Irwin Mitchell and former RAF pilot, who is one of the team representing the families involved, said: "The information about this tragedy has already been devastating for the families to hear." He said they want to know why more was not done to prevent the co-pilot from flying "when it seems clear from the evidence already available that he was a potential risk to himself and passengers". Mr Morris added: "It's crucial that any reasonable recommendations made in the accident report to improve aviation safety are implemented as soon as possible. "Nothing can turn back the clock or bring the innocent victims back but the families now want to see important lessons learned from this so that it reduces the risk of similar incidents. "In particular the news regarding the extent of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz's medical history and the severity of his mental health condition raises very serious questions about how he was assessed and how the fitness of commercial airline pilots should be assessed." Grayson Perry has joined Syrian refugees in producing art to be auctioned for charity. The Postcards For Syria project was created by the British Red Cross to mark five years of the Syrian conflict. Contributors include Perry and comedian Shazia Mirza, as well as Syrian artists Tammam Azzam, Mohammad Omran and Diala Brisly, who have produced artworks, poems or messages for the eBay auction. School children from Scotland, Devon and Yorkshire have also contributed cards on the themes of hope, home and humanity. They join the Syrian refugees who have produced work reflecting on their personal experiences. Sleman Shwaish, a refugee service co-ordinator with the British Red Cross, fled Aleppo, Syria, in 2012. He said: "When conflict broke out in Syria, everything in my life changed. I left my studies, my family, my home. I think of Syria every day. "This project is a way for all of us, Syrians and citizens of the world, to express our feelings and our solidarity," he said. With more than 13 million people inside Syria in need of aid, proceeds from the auction will support the Red Cross volunteers, who are some of the only ones able to work on the frontline. The auction begins at 7pm on Sunday March 13 and lasts until March 20. Proceeds will go to the British Red Cross Syria appeal. The postcards will be displayed from March 14-18 at British Red Cross headquarters in Moorfields, London. The auction can be accessed, along with an online gallery, at www.redcross.org.uk/postcardsforsyria Michael Gove has refused to rule out being the source of reported comments made by the Queen on the EU. During a Brexit campaign visit in Hampshire, the Justice Secretary said he did not know where The Sun got all of its information from. Buckingham Palace has lodged a formal complaint with the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) about the report which appeared under the headline Queen Backs Brexit. "I don't know how The Sun got all of its information," Mr Gove said. Mr Gove said the Ipso investigation into the leak was a "matter for them" and refused to say if he would cooperate with it. Pressed on whether it was unfair to drag the Queen into the row about Britain's future in the EU, he replied: "I've already said that enough has been said about this story so I don't think it's appropriate to say any more than I've already said and others have already said." Asked if he thought the Queen would be pleased to see him when he next has an audience with her, he replied: "I don't know. I wouldn't speculate on a matter like that." Mr Gove spoke to reporters as he knocked on doors canvassing for the Vote Leave campaign. Quitting the EU is "not a leap into the dark, it is a stride into the light", he insisted. The Cabinet minister also gave a speech to supporters in Southampton, urging them to fight an optimistic campaign. Told by one campaigner that David Cameron must not be allowed to carry out exit negotiations with Brussels following a vote backing Brexit, Mr Gove insisted he wanted the Prime Minister to take charge of the talks. "I want David Cameron to stay as Prime Minister. I want him to lead a strong team to negotiate a better deal. We must respectfully disagree on that one. "I'm a big fan of his. This is the only thing I can think of where I disagree with him." The comments prompted some members of the audience to shake their heads and say "no" while others murmured and hissed. Sources close to Mr Gove said: "Michael did not brief this story." His spokesman has previously insisted: "We don't comment on private conversations with the Queen." Fife Police are investigating after twin boys drowned in Dalgety Bay Two-year-old twin boys have drowned in "heartbreaking" circumstances after falling into a fish pond in a garden in Fife. Emergency services were called to the scene in Dalgety Bay at around 8.20am on Saturday after the boys were found. They were rushed to Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy but later died, Police Scotland said. Local MSP Alex Rowley described the incident as "every parent's worst nightmare". Officers are supporting the family and working to establish the full circumstances of the incident. Images on social media showed the a cul-de-sac at the scene cordoned off with police tape and officers standing guard at the front of the home. It is understood the pond is in the back garden of the house. Dalgety Bay councillor Dave Dempsey said the whole community is shocked. He told the Daily Record: "It is enormously sad and my heart goes out to the family. "I cannot begin to imagine what the family are going through - it is everyone's worst nightmare. "The whole community is shocked. "As local councillors, we were all notified that two young children had fallen into a pond and died. "To think it is twin boys is heartbreaking." Mr Rowley added: "This is awful news and is every parent's worst nightmare. "The loss of two young lives from the same family is just heartbreaking. My thoughts and prayers, and those of the whole community, are with the family." Police and ambulance crews were called to the scene. A Police Scotland spokesman said: "We received a call around 8.20am on Saturday following a report of concern for two children at an address in Dalgety Bay, Fife. "Two male twins, aged two-years-old, had reportedly drowned in a fish pond and officers attended with the Scottish Ambulance Service. "The children were taken to the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy where they sadly died. "Officers are supporting the family at this time. Inquiries to establish the full circumstances are ongoing." A protester holds up a ripped campaign sign for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the campus of the University of Illinois Chicago (AP) Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and John Kasich have suggested they may not support Donald Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee, as violence at the front-runner's rallies deepened the party's chaotic chasm. Tensions ran high at Mr Trump's latest rally, when US Secret Service agents briefly formed a protective ring around the candidate, then left the stage and allowed him to continue speaking at an airport hangar near Dayton, Ohio. It was not immediately clear why the agents rushed the stage to surround Mr Trump, who appeared to jolt after hearing something coming from the audience behind him. A defiant Mr Trump has denied that he has encouraged violence at his events. But the scenes from his aborted rally in Chicago on Friday night appeared to be a final straw for some rivals who had pledged, despite deep concerns about his qualifications, to support the billionaire businessman if he were to become the nominee. Mr Rubio, a Florida senator, said it was "getting harder every day" to keep his word. Mr Kasich, the Ohio governor, said the "toxic environment" Mr Trump is creating "makes it very, extremely difficult" to support him. "To see Americans slugging themselves at a political rally deeply disturbed me," Mr Kasich said while campaigning in Cincinnati. "We're better than that." The extraordinary shift by the two came just a few days before Tuesday's elections in five states, including Florida, Ohio and Illinois. Mr Trump insisted he had done nothing to exacerbate tensions, despite having previously encouraged his supporters to aggressively - and sometimes physically - stop protesters from interrupting his raucous rallies. "I don't take responsibility. Nobody's been hurt at our rallies," Mr Trump told CNN late on Friday, one of several interviews he did as cable networks broadcast footage of the skirmishes both inside and outside the Chicago arena where he had planned to speak. In Dayton, the audience chanted Trump's name as the Secret Service agents rushed the stage. Mr Trump did not explain what had happened, but said: "Thank you for the warning. I was ready for 'em, but it's much better if the cops do it, don't we agree?" The brash billionaire's unexpected political success has caused turmoil in the Republican Party. Most leaders expected his populist appeal would fade as nominating contests began and largely avoided criticising even his most extreme comments out of fear of alienating his supporters. But after 24 primary contests, Mr Trump has only grown stronger and leads his rivals in the all-important delegate count. The delegates will select the party's nominee at the Republican national convention in July in Cleveland. Republican leaders are grasping for a last-ditch idea to stop Mr Trump from claiming the nomination, from talking about a contested convention to discussing whether to rally around a yet-to-be-determined third-party candidate. All are long shots at best and would likely have the effect of ripping the Republican Party apart in irreparable ways. Mr Rubio and Mr Kasich must win their home state contests on Tuesday in order to stay in the race. Texas senator Ted Cruz, closest to Mr Trump in the delegate count, has urged both to drop out so he can take on the front-runner in a head-to-head contest. Mr Cruz said late on Friday that Mr Trump has created "an environment that encourages this sort of nasty discourse." "When the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that is escalates," he said. The chaos in Chicago was sparked in part by Mr Trump's decision to cancel his rally after skirmishes broke out in the crowd that, unlike past Trump events, was packed with protesters. Some isolated confrontations took place afterwards. Police reported arresting five people. Many anti-Trump attendees had rushed on to the floor of the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion, jumping up and down with their arms up in the air. President Barack Obama, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Dallas, said those who aspire to lead the country "should be trying to bring us together and not turning us against one another". He said leaders should also "speak out against violence". "If they refuse to do that, they don't deserve our support," he said. Forget the cliches, White House has seen more than its fair share of powerful women Dozens of women have followed in her footsteps, but Martha Washington, wife of first US President George, essentially set the First Lady template. Referred to as Lady Washington, she was a widow and mother-of-four when she married George in 1759 (her husband Daniel Custis, who was said to own hundreds of slaves in Virginia, died in 1757). Content initially to live a private life, Martha followed Washington to his winter encampments and helped to keep up morale among the officers. When the time came for George to agree to be President of the newly formed United States of America, Martha was initially resistant, but soon acquiesced. Given that his wife had inherited a vast estate from her first husband, Washington used her great wealth to buy land and slaves - he more than tripled the size of their Mount Vernon home. Despite her love of hostessing, Martha had always complained of ill health, and she deteriorated rapidly after George's death in 1799. She was to die only two years later at the age of 70. Picture in your mind's eye a vision of the White House's First Lady, and there's every chance you'll conjure up one or all of the following: impeccable tailoring, rictus grin, affably standing shoulder-to-shoulder with ostensibly the most powerful man in the free world. The woman who is the docile, devoted wind beneath the President's wings; a role that's more protector and facilitator than anything else. Yet, history tells a different story, and the White House has seen more than its fair share of redoubtable, powerful women. In the week of 94-year-old Nancy Regan's death the world was prompted to doff a cap to her not-insignificant influence on her husband Ronald, not least in his declining years. As the 40th President's health ebbed away due to Alzheimer's, Nancy was credited as being central to his successful tenure in Washington DC. It could be argued that Nancy initially made a negative impression on the US. While the country struggled under an unkind economic climate she soon hit the headlines for her lavish parties, her hostessing skills and for remodelling the White House at significant cost (a precedent likely set by the aforementioned Martha). Also not helping her popularity was Nancy's hiring of an astrologer, something that rankled the media, along with her husband's improbable career trajectory from actor to politico. However, in the wake of her death Nancy has been credited with more than just that. USA Today noted how she "softened her husband's sharp edges to produce a pragmatic President who could cut deals with the political opposition in Congress and Soviet leaders he had assailed". It's true that Nancy was thought to be the impetus behind the President's reaching out to the Soviets, and the eventual end of the Cold War and the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union. Her influence was felt keenly elsewhere, not least on domestic policy, where a word in her husband's ear meant that certain programmes for America's poor were preserved. There were other notable victories - the hiring and firing of certain consultants and aides and masterminding her husband's reputation. And then there was the role she took on somewhat unwillingly and entirely by dint of tragic circumstance. Referring to Nancy's "long goodbye" to her husband, President Barack Obama noted: "She became a voice on behalf of millions of families going through the depleting, aching reality of Alzheimer's, and took on a new role as advocate on behalf of treatments that hold the potential and the promise to improve and save lives." A formidable legacy, certainly, and one that places Nancy in the pantheon of Mrs Presidents. But soon the question begs to be answered: how influential can a First Lady - a woman who is for all intents and purposes putting her husband and his career at the centre of her life - really be? Well, she can be quite influential, as it happens, and it's by no means a modern phenomenon. Though never written down, the job specification was to play house (and hostess) at the White House, but the role evolved down the years so that the First Lady was prompted to select causes to eschew. Sara Polk (wife of 11th President James) was thought to have crafted speeches and tended to official correspondence; Abigail Filmore (wife of 13th President Millard) created the White House library; Edith Wilson (wife of 28th President Woodrow) took unofficial control over the office after her husband's stroke in 1919. Similarly, Rosalynn Carter (wife of 39th President Jimmy) sat in on several of her husband's Cabinet meetings. And then there was Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of 32nd President Franklin), as quotable and controversial as she was indefatigable and esteemed. Using the spotlight and a syndicated newspaper column to advance causes as diverse as civil rights and women's rights, Eleanor - the longest serving First Lady - was a leader in the formation of the United Nations and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. By the time of her death in 1962 Eleanor Roosevelt was described as "the object of almost universal respect" in her New York Times obituary. Advocating for causes was a particular specialty for Betty Ford (wife of 38th President Gerald) too - psychiatric treatment, the legalisation of abortion and breast cancer awareness topped her agenda. People listened, not least because such candour and personal honesty from a high-profile figure was uncommon at the time. However, for every Eleanor and Betty there were others who preferred a life of familial quietude, not to mention the fringe benefits of the job at hand, namely celebrity, a coterie of fashion designers to hand and a number of willing aides. Jackie Kennedy (wife of 35th President John) in particular spent much of her time in Pennsylvania Avenue restoring the White House and buffing her reputation as a poised style icon to a high shine. History would remember her as a wife who preferred not to get involved in her husband's work, and even her role in his assassination in 1963 would sadly focus on Jackie as the stylish trophy wife (several media outlets referred to her iconic Chanel suit, spattered in blood as it was). Ever the lady, Jackie kept a dignified silence amid rumblings of her husband's extramarital affairs, which was a typical reaction for the time. Hillary Rodham Clinton (wife of 42nd President Bill) found herself in a not dissimilar situation, albeit in a rather different cultural and political climate. Much like Mrs Kennedy before her, Hillary appeared to turn a blind eye to her husband's reported infidelities, prompting many to label her as a docile doormat. But, in truth, her power was undeniable: she was appointed head of the task force on national healthcare reform, and spoke openly on women's and children's issues, espousing legislation on the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Becoming a junior Senator after her husband's second term as President, Hillary was elected to be Obama's Secretary of State after she gave him a run for his money during the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008. So strong was her run, in fact, that Hillary has gone in for a second bite this year, gunning for the gig as 45th President. This is also the year that the age-old conceit of the typical First Lady may well get a massive makeover. Last week's Super Tuesday (when most states vote on respective party candidates) put Clinton and Donald Trump as frontrunners in this year's race to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. If 'The Donald' should end up bagging the Presidency later this year his wife Melania Trump, a Slovenian supermodel turned jewellery-designer, will be a force to be reckoned with as First Lady. Never mind upping the glam factor, Melania is thought to have her husband's ear. There's no doubting that the high-wattage glare of the media's spotlight will be trained on her every move. In other words, politicos may underestimate her power at their peril should her husband reign supreme after this year's Presidential scrum. Alternatively, there's the possibility, should Clinton end up in pole position, of a 'First Gentleman' taking up residence, and even more tantalisingly, the prospect of a former President turned First Gentleman. Sea changes are indeed possibly afoot. And there are certainly big shoes to fill thanks to outgoing First Lady, Michelle Obama. A relaxed, genuine and endearing presence at the side of her husband, 44th President Barack, Michelle set aside her own remarkable law career (she met her husband at Chicago law firm Sidley Austin) and reduced her professional responsibilities by an estimated 80% in order to support her husband's race to the White House. Originally, it was thought that Michelle was resistant to the idea of her husband running for the Presidency, but the two struck a deal - if he gave up smoking, she would support his decision to run for the highest office. Job done on moving to Washington, the new First Lady wasted no time in getting her hands mucky, becoming an advocate for poverty awareness, nutrition, LGBT rights, pay equity, and supporting military families and the health of Americans in general. Michelle's has often been described as personable and intimate, bonding with military families, visiting soup kitchens and using her high profile to advance causes. Yet there's something much more compelling about her and the way she has handled her two terms as Mrs President. Modern, dynamic and unpretentious, she refused to kowtow to tradition, and has been criticised time and time again for being opinionated and outspoken in a way that her fore-sisters weren't. In fact, the only thing more interesting than seeing who might become the White House's next domestic partner is seeing what 52-year-old Michelle will do next. The media is already enthralled with the Obamas; whether they will return to their legal careers is moot. A position of power on the world stage is very much theirs for the taking. Yet if Michelle follows in the footsteps of those who have gone before her, it's certainly safe to say we are in for some seismic times indeed. The UN Security Council backed the plan by secretary general Ban Ki-moon, pictured, to send home military or police units where there is credible evidence of abuse The United Nations Security Council has adopted its first resolution to tackle the escalating problem of sexual abuse by the world body's peacekeepers sent to protect vulnerable civilians in some of the most volatile areas. The UN has been in the spotlight for months over allegations of child rape and other abuses by its peacekeeping troops, especially those based in Central African Republic and Congo. The UN said there were 69 claims of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers in 2015, with an additional 25 so far this year. The resolution was approved by a vote of 14-0 with Egypt abstaining after unsuccessfully proposing a last-minute amendment that would have weakened the text. The US-drafted resolution endorses UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon's plan for reform, including his decision to repatriate military or police units "where there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse". It also asks Mr Ban to replace contingents where allegations are not properly investigated, perpetrators are not held accountable or the secretary general is not informed on the progress of investigations. The Egyptian amendment would have required that all three conditions were met before a military or police unit was sent home, rather than just one of them, as is now required. The US, the biggest financial contributor to peacekeeping operations, said it wanted the security council - the UN's most powerful body - to send a strong signal that it would not tolerate the escalating problem. "To the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, we pledge that we will do better," US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said after the vote. "We will do better to ensure that the blue helmets that we send as your protectors will not become perpetrators." More than 100,000 troops and police are deployed in the UN's far-flung peacekeeping operations, the vast majority from developing countries. The UN reimburses troop-contributing countries for salaries and provides allowances for peacekeepers. As part of the secretary general's reforms, the UN has for the first time begun naming the countries of alleged perpetrators, a move meant to pressure states to pursue allegations that, UN records show, they often have let slide. Mr Ban has also pledged to speed up investigations and to make information available about outstanding allegations on a new UN website. Egypt, Russia and several other countries argued that the security council resolution would punish thousands of peacekeepers for the actions of a few, saying the issue should be addressed in the UN General Assembly instead. But unlike security council resolutions, general assembly actions are not legally binding. Egypt's UN ambassador Amr Abdellatif Aboulatta said libelling and "branding entire states" was totally unacceptable and "drastically and inevitably affects the morale of the troops". He said it would have been more appropriate if the security council focused on the root causes of sex crimes, including training and supervision at camps for peacekeepers. One of the 25 allegations this year is against an Egyptian peacekeeper in the Central African Republic. Egyptian authorities are investigating the case, according to the UN website. Russia and China supported the Egyptian amendment, but then voted in favour of the resolution. Russia's deputy UN ambassador Petr Iliichev said it was "wrong" for the council to reject the Egyptian amendment which reflected the view of troop contributing countries. But he said Russia decided to support the resolution because the final text was expanded to call for all forces deployed by the security council - a reference to French troops accused of sexually abusing children in Central African Republic and African Union soldiers in Somalia, Darfur and elsewhere. "Today is a step in the right direction," London-based Amnesty International's crisis response director Tirana Hassan said. "But it will still require significant reform throughout the UN system." Every year, the day after Nyepi the Hindu New Years Day in Indonesia a parade of relatives and friends descends on the home of Sucipto, a Hindu community leader in Glanggang Village of Malang regency in East Java. The well-wishers are not just Hindus, but Muslims too. This religiously diverse village is like many others in mostly moderate, Muslim-majority Indonesia it has nurtured a tradition of interfaith tolerance for decades. Nyepi lasts for three days and its mood both joyful and contemplative infects the whole village. Hindus stay home and remain quiet on Nyepi, which fell on March 9 this year, but the following day is for visiting. More guests come in the evening. My living room cant hold any more, Sucipto told BenarNews from his home where the coffee table was laden with snacks, bananas and mineral water for visitors (below). Muriadi, Suciptos former junior high school mate, visits Sucipto on Nyepi every year. And every year, Sucipto shows up on Idul Fitri, Islams most festive day, at Muriadis house. We respect each others belief, Muriadi said. Muriadi says he has taught his children that same spirit of tolerance. It seems natural, as the neighborhood has been practicing religious tolerance for such a long time, he said. Another visitor was Suciptos Muslim niece, Wahyuni. Every year, her family makes the 50-kilometer (31-mile) trip by motorcycle from their home in another village to pay respects to Sucipto. Interfaith relations are a family affair. Our family members vary. Some of them practice Hinduism, some Islam, and others are Christians. We respect each other, said Wahyuni. Day of Silence About 170 of 1,000 families in Glanggang Village practice Hinduism. The rest are Muslims and Christians, both Protestant and Catholic. Traditional Hindu ornaments, called penjor, decorate front yards in the Karang Tengah neighborhood, where the Eka Kapti Hindu temple and a mosque stand 100 meters apart. The whole village was silent on Nyepi, when Hindus cannot work, go out, light fires or use electricity. Although not required or requested to do so, many Muslims observed the same restrictions. Kasir, who is Muslim, turned off all the lights in his house and stayed home much of the day. It is my way to show respect to those who observed the day, he said. Another Muslim, Misenah, did not run her tempeh-making business because the machines that make the fermented soybean cakes are noisy. No, I dont mind to halt production for just one day. Its my way to respect them, she said. Mosques in the village announced the call to prayer on loudspeakers, but Muslims went home quickly afterward, Kasir said. Sucipto, for his part, says he has attended Quran recitals or other religious activities held by his non-Hindu neighbors. He joins others neighbors to clean up the villages cemetery complex twice a year: to welcome Islams holy month of Ramadan, and Hindu Nyepi. Kasir, meanwhile, helped stage manage the Tawur Kesanga ceremony, the day before Nyepi, when Hindus make and burn ogoh-ogoh, ornate paper sculptures symbolizing evil spirits, in a nearby field. Jonathan Head (center), the chairman of a professional committee of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, chats with colleagues in Bangkok, March 11, 2016. The situation for reporters in Thailand is dire, a senior journalist told diplomats in Bangkok, citing military attitude adjustments for the local press corps and new visa restrictions for foreign media. Press and internet freedom have eroded steadily under the Thai junta since the generals seized power in May 2014, Shawn Crispin, senior Southeast Asia representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told a group of ambassadors this week. Yet in his 17 years as a Bangkok-based reporter, the situation for reporters, apart from when bullets are flying in the national capital during political protests, has never been more dire, Crispin said. Since the coup on May 22, 2014, the government led by former Gen. Prayuth Chan-o-cha has cracked down on members of media and vowed to eradicate any reporting seen as offensive to the monarchy, according to Crispin. Thai reporters have faced stricter scrutiny of their work over the last two years, and they operate in a climate of fear and uncertainty, never sure exactly where the line between permissible and off-limits reporting lies, Crispin said. Local journalists who have crossed that vague line have suffered increasingly harsh reprisals, including so-called attitude adjustment sessions in military custody, according to a transcript of his remarks that were posted on CPJs website Thursday. Pravit Rojanaphruk, a senior writer for Khaosod English, is a Thai reporter who has twice been summoned by the military for attitude adjustment sessions. Journalists are called in for these brief periods of detention as a reminder to stop reporting critically about the junta, Pravit told BenarNews. There have been at least four Thai journalists receiving attitude adjustments. They were from Prachathai, Fadiewkan and a cartoonist as well as me, he said. Last September, journalists and free press advocates called on the junta to free Pravit, who was a columnist for The Nation at that time, after he was held for an attitude adjustment. He was asked to sign a document, failing which he would be charged with sedition, a government spokesman said at the time. In a separate episode, Pravit was held for a weeklong attitude adjustment session in May 2014, according to reports. Foreign journalists could be forced to leave Until now foreign reporters mostly have been immune from that the fear that stalks local reporters, but that could change soon, Crispin warned. New restrictions on visas for foreign journalists, which are to take effect March 21, could instill the same self-censorship practiced among local journalists in the foreign media, he said. If strictly enforced as written, the guidelines will inevitably hollow out Thailands now robust foreign press corps and further curb critical news coverage of Chan-o-chas rights-curbing junta, he added. Previously, Thailands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) provided foreign journalists with Type-M or Media visas, and allowed them to acquire a press card from Thailand public relations department. It also allowed them to get visa extensions from the immigration bureau and a work permit from the ministry of labor at a one-stop service office. The guidelines give authorities the power to deny visa applications in punitive response to any news they deem as disruptive to public order or security, Crispin said. How officials will measure or determine what constitutes a disruption is unclear. The new policy also requires that foreign journalists must work full-time for a registered news organization a move that could negatively affect freelance reporters. If Thailand truly wanted to get in step with the changing nature of global media, it would implement measures that aimed to promote and protect freelancers, not restrict them, Crispin added. Last month, after the New York-based CPJ first publicized its concerns about the new visa policy, the government released a statement denying that the policy was aimed at tightening access to the country for foreign reporters. Journalists, correspondents and freelancers employed by a news agency registered with the competent agency of either Thai or foreign government will not be affected, the statement said. The new guidelines were not intended to restrict, forbid or limit the work of foreign media, as well as foreigners who work in Thailand, it added. Very stressful Since Jan. 1, journalists have sought assistance in obtaining visas, Jonathan Head who chairs a professional committee of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT), told BenarNews on Friday. In the last two months, Ive been contacted by more than 10 people who have had problem with an M-visa that had them rejected and that is very stressful, Head said. Some of them have lived here for a long time. The MFA advised them they can get business visa instead, he added. And if an application for an alternative visa is not successful, they have to leave Thailand. ein Google-Unternehmen Google-Dienste anzubieten und zu betreiben Ausfalle zu prufen und Manahmen gegen Spam, Betrug und Missbrauch zu ergreifen Daten zu Zielgruppeninteraktionen und Websitestatistiken zu erheben. 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Sofern relevant, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auerdem, um Inhalte und Werbung altersgerecht zu gestalten. Wir verwenden Cookies und Daten, umWenn Sie Alle akzeptieren auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auch, umWahlen Sie Weitere Optionen aus, um sich zusatzliche Informationen anzusehen, einschlielich Details zum Verwalten Ihrer Datenschutzeinstellungen. Sie konnen auch jederzeit g.co/privacytools besuchen. Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province and elsewhere in Saudi Arabia Former Czech President Vaclav Klaus travels to Germany to support the extreme right-wing party Alternative fuer Deutschland 12. 3. 2016 cas cteni 1 minuta On Friday 11th March, former Czech President Vaclav Klaus gave a speech in the pre-election meeting of the German extreme right-wing party Alternative fuer Deutschland in the town of Neuwied in the Rheinland. He was depicted in on the pre-election posters with the Chairperson of the party Frauke Petry and its candidate Uwe Jung. Klaus, who is a strong eurosceptic and holder of extreme anti-refugee views, said that "Europe is turning into a dangerous battlefield". He demanded that Germany should "act to solve the refugee problem on its territory". This is not the first time that Klaus has spoken in support of AfD during its meetings in Germany, but commentators are sceptical about whether Klaus's extremist views will actually influence the impact of the elections. While Klaus is regarded as a former politician and is basically a spent political force in the Czech Republic, he has been recently trying to rejuvenate his political career by attempting to create an anti-refugee political platform. Its wider success is doubtful, nevertheless the Czech media continue to give considerable space to his views. The same applies to the extreme right wing views of his son, Vaclav Klaus junior, a former headmaster of a private secondary school in Prague, whose aggressively expressed anti-EU and anti-refugee articles have a large following in the former communist party daily Pravo. His recent articles, where he rails against the inclusion of slightly disabled children in mainstream schools and supports Marine Le Pen, have attracted around 600 000 readers on the Novinky.cz website (an internet version of Pravo), i.t. about 6 per cent of the Czech population. Klaus father and son seem to work in tandem. Source in Czech HERE 0 The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels. You will not find this level of coverage anywhere else, join us! WARNING: Posts may contain strong violent material, discretion is advised. COMMENTS: We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. ... [Kraushaar's] underlying argument is fairly standard--and, in a way, much more revealing.... Kraushaar... blame[s]... the rise of Trump... [on] Obamacare. Franken only figures in because Obamacare couldn't have passed without 60 Democrats in the Senate and Franken was the last (and most famous) Democrat.... The next chain in the argument is that the passage of Obamacare drove the Republican Party into a frenzied, endless backlash.... Kraushaar is echoing the standard Republican line... quotes John Boehner saying... "in a democracy, you can only ignore the will of the people for so long and get away with it.' In this telling, Obamacare was hubris that led to disaster.... There are two ways to look at Obamacare. One is that it was more or less American politics working as it's supposed to. Democrats won two wave elections in a row and amassed a tremendous amount of political power. That done, they turned to their top priority: health reform.... In a bid to win over both moderate Democrats and Republicans, they abandoned their single-payer dreams and their public option hopes and crafted legislation based on Mitt Romney's successful, bipartisan Massachusetts reforms.... Obamacare is now covering about 20 million people at a cost lower than anyone anticipated. This is the political system doing its job in a polarized age. But there's another popular narrative of Obamacare that it was a hijacking of American politics in order to pass radical, unconstitutional legislation that forever transformed the country. In this telling, Democrats won a hefty majority on a message of unity and moderation and then rammed socialized health care down the country's throat. They bought off interest groups, exploited parliamentary loopholes, and ignored the clear will of the people. The GOP's lockstep opposition was driven by the danger posed by the legislation and the corruption of the process... [by] the Democrats' unforgivable decision to use a transient majority to permanently reshape America. Longtime readers won't be surprised to know I think the first narrative is basically true and the second narrative is rather overwrought. But the second narrative is widely believed on the right. It's what the Republican Party has been telling its voters for years. It's what Kraushaar is gesturing towards in his column. And I think there is reason to believe it's partly what's driving Trump.... Grassroots conservatives weren't fated to panic over Obamacare. They were told to panic over Obamacare. And their leaders told them that for good reason. Republicans persuaded their base that something terrible was happening to the country and promised that if they won the 2010 election they could undo the damage Obama had done. The strategy worked. Republicans won the 2010 election, and they won it in a big way. But then they couldn't undo what Obama had done. And their base was too scared to simply accept that. Republicans told their voters to freak out. So their voters freaked out.... [What] connects Trump and Cruz is their demonstrated agreement with grassroots conservatives that something has gone deeply wrong in America and the traditional tools of politics are insufficient if you want to fix it.... Republican voters have good reason believe American politics is truly broken and something precious about this country is on the verge of being lost forever. They have been told that, again and again, by every leader and pundit in their party, for years... by Mitt Romney... by John Boehner... by writers like Kraushaar.... And those are the sober, establishment-oriented figures I'm quoting. What GOP voters have heard on talk radio has been much, much worse. What's interesting about Kraushaar's column isn't the novelty of the thesis but the persistence of the metathesis. Republicans have worked for years to radicalize their base against Obama, to persuade them that something truly different and terrifying is going on, and in that project they have enjoyed a catastrophic success. Now elite Republicans are panicking as they watch their base turn to different and terrifying kinds of politicians.... Republicans desperately need to persuade their base that this moment isn't as dire as they think it is and a more conventional class of political figures is appropriate.... But doing so would require... a radical revision of the party's core narrative... Already have an account? Log in here HALIFAX - Newsroom employees at Canada's largest independent daily newspaper say management refuses to return to the bargaining table as a strike enters its seventh week. We need your support! Local journalism needs your support! As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed. Now, more than ever, we need your support. Starting at $4.99/month you can access your Brandon Sun online and full access to all content as it appears on our website. or call circulation directly at (204) 727-0527. Your pledge helps to ensure we provide the news that matters most to your community! Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 11/03/2016 (2416 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. CALGARY WestJet has hired Ernst & Young to investigate after it says several employees came forward with new information about workplace assault and harassment. The Calgary-based airline is facing a lawsuit filed by a former flight attendant who says the company failed to adequately investigate after she alleged a pilot had sexually assaulted her. CEO Gregg Saretsky said the company asked staff to raise any issues they might have related to workplace assault or harassment. Some responded and in light of the new information Ernst & Young has been asked to investigate, he said. WestJet intends to defend this lawsuit in court. However, the broader issues of sexual assault and harassment in the workplace that were raised are matters we take most seriously, he said in a statement issued Friday. Ernst & Young will review WestJets investigative and reporting procedures as well as its practices for a safe and harassment-free work environment, the statement said. Lauren Stewart, a spokeswoman for the airline, said once the review is complete, the general recommendations will be made public. However, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals identified or described in the report, we will not make public sections of the report involving our employees and their personal information, she said in an email. Stewart said once WestJet learned of the lawsuit, it immediately began reinvestigating the allegations and encouraged employees to come forward with information about them or any other behaviour that violates its respectful workplace policies. The airline now has sufficient information to ask Ernst & Young to conduct a review of its practices and procedures, she said. Ernst & Young declined comment and referred questions to WestJet. None of the allegations has been proven in court, but former flight attendant Mandalena Lewis alleges in a statement of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court that WestJet failed to adequately respond to an alleged incident during a stopover in Hawaii in 2010. Lewis alleges an unnamed pilot invited her back to his hotel room for a drink where he pulled her onto his bed and began kissing and groping her. She says she reported the incident to WestJet and to police, and the airline instructed her to keep quiet out of respect for the pilots privacy, telling her there was nothing it could do. Five years later, a colleague told her she had made a sexual assault complaint about the same pilot in 2008, Lewis alleges. WestJet said last week that two employees mentioned in the lawsuit have been taken out of active flying duty while the company reviews its investigations into the complaints. By Laura Kane in Vancouver Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/03/2016 (2415 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Canadian Screen Awards have been positioned as this countrys version of the Golden Globes albeit without quite the same level of Hollywood glitz and blinding star wattage. But the annual bash does attract its fair share of Canadian luminaries, and this year even includes some Oscar contenders. The Canada-Ireland co-production Room and Canada-UK-Ireland co-production Brooklyn are among the films seeking the best picture prize, while beloved comedy veterans Eugene Levy and Catherine OHara chase acting prizes for their sitcom Schitts Creek, the leading TV nominee. Heres a look at five things to know about the Canadian Screen Awards, which celebrate the best in homegrown film, television and digital media on Sunday: 1. Oscar deja-vu. Canadian Oscar nominees left the L.A. bash largely empty-handed, despite a slew of nominations for work on films including The Revenant, The Martian, Spotlight and Room. But some talent involved with the Toronto-shot Room are well-positioned to triumph at the Canadian Screen Awards: London, Ont.-based novelist Emma Donoghue seems destined for a best adapted screenplay prize, and nine-year-old Jacob Tremblay who was a presenter at the Oscars could get the best actor nod. American Oscar-winner Brie Larson also seems a lock for a best actress award, while Dublin-bred Lenny Abrahamson is a strong contender for best director. The best picture category is a crowded race: the Oscar-nominated Brooklyn, partly shot in Montreal and featuring several Canadian secondary players, battles Room, Corbo, The Demons, Felix and Meira, The Forbidden Room, My Internship in Canada, Our Loved Ones, Remember and Sleeping Giant. 2. A comics comic takes the reins. The bash has traditionally enlisted MCs who have made it big in the United States past hosts include William Shatner, Martin Short and honorary Canadian Andrea Martin. This year its standup star Norm Macdonald, the former Saturday Night Live regular known largely for his Burt Reynolds impression on the SNL sketch Celebrity Jeopardy! and controversial O.J. Simpson jokes on the Weekend Update desk. His appearance at the Canadian Screen Awards could be seen as a bid for an edgier, more unpredictable broadcast. Both good things. 3. And the cutest nominee is: Tremblay. The Vancouver native has undeniably emerged as the breakout Canuck star of the awards season, proving remarkably adept at providing red carpet quips and adorable paparazzi poses. Just check out the aww-inducing YouTube clips of him cracking jokes at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and breaking hearts with his best young actor acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Awards: Whoa, this is super cool. This is the best day of my life! At the Canadian Screen Awards, Tremblay is set to present an award in addition to competing for the best film actor prize against seasoned rivals that include octogenarian Christopher Plummer. 4. Tremblay is not the only kid seeking hardware. Theres an abundance of young talent seeking wins for film and television projects this year. Eighteen-year-old Nick Serino is up for his supporting role in the Canadian indie Sleeping Giant. Hell face competition from designer-turned-actor Waris Ahluwalia of Beeba Boys, as well as Tony Nardi of Corbo, Irdens Exantus of My Internship in Canada and Patrick Hivon of Ville-Marie. Shailyn Pierre-Dixon, 12, already collected a best supporting actress prize for her turn as the young slave Aminata in the CBC miniseries The Book of Negroes. The Caledon, Ont., preteen also appears as a regular on the City/Netflix series Between. 5. SCTV reunion? With Levy, OHara and Short all scheduled to appear at the awards, the televised bash is practically screaming out for some sort of SCTV reunion. How about a round of their classic dim-witted trivia game Half Wits, with Macdonald trotting out alter ego Turd Ferguson and Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany using her chameleon-like skills for comedy? With about 20 categories to blow through in two hours, a few laughs would be a welcomed breather from the often dry proceedings and showcase Canuck talent at the same time. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/03/2016 (2415 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Long considered an outsider in the conservative caucus, Inky Mark says the Conservatives have finished the job and removed him completely. He says the Conservative Party of Canada has given him the boot. Mark described the move to revoke his party membership as unusual, especially for a former sitting MP who was elected five times. Winnipeg Free Press Inky Mark It looks vindictive to the public, Mark said during a phone interview Friday afternoon. On Thursday, Mark sent The Brandon Sun a copy of an email from the partys executive director, Dustin van Vugt, informing him that the National Council voted to revoke your membership. A call to the Conservative party late Friday afternoon didnt receive an immediate response. But Mark said he believes he was turfed because he ran against the party in the last election as an independent. He placed a distant fourth in the riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa in the 2015 vote. Conservative Robert Sopuck captured that seat. Mark, 68, noted he had been a Conservative party member for most of his adult life. He represented the Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette riding (formerly Dauphin-Swan River) from 1997 to 2010. In the early days of his political career, he represented Reform and Canadian Alliance before becoming a member of the Conservative party in 2003. He retired from politics in 2010, but made a comeback with his run as an independent in 2015. Marks relationship with the governing conservatives was strained in recent years. In announcing his candidacy for his last election run, he said then prime minister Stephen Harper had moved Conservatives away from small-c conservative values. Despite his run against his former party as an independent, Mark said he was still caught off-guard by his revoked membership after the recent election. The party could have just let his membership lapse, he said. I am surprised, because Id never ever heard of such a thing, Mark said. If that was the case, why didnt they forewarn me earlier? Mark said he considered Harper a dictator. And, even though the former prime minister stepped down as party leader, Mark said this move is a sign Harperites are still in control. Mark said hes moving on from politics and will proceed with retirement and hobbies such as flying and shooting. ihitchen@brandonsun.com Twitter: @IanHitchen Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/03/2016 (2415 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. WINNIPEG Employment growth rebounded last month in Manitoba, with the province posting a net gain of 2,000 new jobs after shedding 5,300 positions in January, new Statistics Canada data shows. In its monthly labour force report , the federal agency said the 2,000 new jobs included 900 full-time positions and 1,100 part-time ones. With last months net gain, Manitobas unemployment rate nudged down a notch to six per cent from 6.1 per cent in January. Thats the second-lowest jobless rate in the country after Saskatchewans 5.9 per cent. While Manitobas month-over-month job gain was encouraging, the data also shows there were still 4,300 fewer Manitobans working last month than in February 2015. Although the economy added 6,200 new part-time positions in the past year, that was more than offset by the loss of 10,500 fewer full-time workers. The provincial data was released with Statistics Canadas latest labour force survey, which found the national unemployment rate crept up to 7.3 per cent last month for the first time in three years. The Canada-wide jobless rate increased by 0.1 per cent for the third month in a row, said the report, which noted overall job growth remained flat. Winnipeg Free Press, with files from The Canadian Press Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/03/2016 (2415 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA Family members of a Canadian teacher jailed in Indonesia say theyre satisfied the federal government is doing more than paying lip service to the case. Last month Indonesias high court overturned Neil Bantlemans acquittal of charges of sexually abusing children and he was put back in prison. Bantleman has maintained his innocence since he was accused of abusing three children at a prestigious international school in the capital Jakarta. Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman sits on the defendant's chair prior to the start of his trial hearing at South Jakarta District Court in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, Dec. 2, 2014. Family members of a Canadian teacher jailed in Indonesia say they're satisfied the federal government is doing more than paying lip service to the case. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP,Tatan Syuflana The case attracted the attention of Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion, who issued a statement last month saying the government was deeply dismayed and shocked that the acquittal ruling was overturned. Bantlemans brother Guy spent the past two days in Ottawa meeting with MPs and officials in the department of Global Affairs. The family has maintained Neil Bantleman was the victim of a corrupt Indonesian justice system and his brother said he came away with the feeling that the federal Liberals are serious about finding a way to get the teacher freed. We are very satisfied theyre taking this seriously, Guy Bantleman said in a phone interview late Friday. Theyve laid out a plan as far as how very senior government officials will be involved over the coming weeks. Bantleman said he couldnt share many details of what the involvement would be, only saying there would be very significant high level discussions going on. Its an ongoing dialogue, its not just a statement of concern with this case, its talking about how this can be resolved, he said. Neil Bantleman can make one last appeal to the courts to review his conviction and his lawyers will prepare an application later this year, but Guy Bantleman said both he and the government officials he spoke with agreed it was a long shot. They seemed to be really focused on the fact that this was going to be more of a diplomatic effort than a judicial effort, Guy Bantleman said. The case has dragged through the Indonesian justice system since Neil Bantleman was arrested in July, 2014. He was convicted and handed a 10 year prison sentence last April and then freed in August when the conviction was overturned. Bantleman turned himself in when the Indonesian High Court quashed the acquittal last month and added a year to his prison sentence. His family have described the conditions in the prison as squalid and said although Bantleman is showing great resilience, theyre concerned that his health is at risk. From a safety concern, thats something that we need to focus on, his brother Guy Bantleman said. They (the federal government) need to take all that seriously and they seem to be. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 12/03/2016 (2415 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. EDMONTON Behind the glamour of the vogue power couple from Canada being hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama for a dinner at the White House, lies a secret continental climate strategy the two leaders will reportedly sign. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will not endorse the Trans Pacific Partnership there because the government has a very deep commitment to transparency and a full national dialogue, according to International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland. Why the double standard? Why should Canadians not be as widely consulted on a continental climate strategy, too? Energy ministers in the three NAFTA countries agreed in Winnipeg on Feb. 12 to forge a continental clean energy accord. Canadas Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said the Winnipeg agreement builds on strides made toward a continental energy strategy. Thats news to Canadians. What strides and to what end? Would a continental energy strategy help Canada meet its ambitious Paris climate promises? Will it lock Canadians into their traditional role as diggers and exporters of carbon fuels? There are reports a continental clean energy deal would be about tighter fuel and auto-emission standards, electric cars, and self-driving vehicles. If thats all it is, Canadians would probably support it. But why did Carr talk about a continental energy deal to be discussed by the leaders of the three Amigo countries in May in Canada. Or are those separate, secret talks? Powerful interests are pushing for a continental climate-energy deal. In 2014, a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations, based in New York, called for an energy and environmental strategy with Canada and Mexico to strengthen the United States at home and enhance its influence abroad. The task force was headed by David Petraeus, former head of the CIA and former commander of the occupation forces in Iraq, and Robert B. Zoellick, former president of the World Bank and current chairman of Goldman Sachs international advisers. They call for cross-border energy regulatory and policy integration. Thats usually code for Canada and Mexico adopting the American way. Its easy to see why U.S. officials want continental energy integration. Despite the recent surge in domestic oil production, the U.S. is forecast to still import more than a quarter of its oil through 2035. Washington sees Canada and Mexico as much safer oil suppliers than the Middle East and Venezuela. But would energy integration give Canadians energy security? Canada imports about 40 per cent of its oil. Eastern Canadians are vulnerable to international oil shortages. If she becomes president, Hillary Clinton promises to immediately launch negotiations on a North American climate pact so the U.S. will lead the world in transitioning to a clean-energy economy and ensure Americans security. But how will Canada get to a low-carbon future if it chains itself to massive carbon fuel exports? Why should Canada tie its carbon-reducing plan with a country whose largest emissions one-third are from coal-fired electrical power plants? Obamas paltry plan put on hold by the Supreme Court is to reduce such emissions by only 30 per cent by 2030. Ontario has completely eliminated them. Alberta will phase out coal power generation by 2030. Canadas main carbon emissions lie elsewhere. Its the production of oil and natural gas, mainly for export, not autos and trucks used by Canadians, that is Canadas biggest source. Albertas oil sands are the fastest-growing source. Its growth to Albertas cap of 100 megatonnes (Mt) a year, is the main roadblock to Canada cutting emissions from a projected 765 Mt to 524 Mt by 2030. Canada cant meet those Paris promises if its locked into being Americas gas tank. Phasing out carbon energy exports and oil sands production will cut our emissions the most. Given the power imbalances, the U.S. will call the shots in a North American clean energy pact. Where would that leave the many Canadians pushing their governments for serious climate action? Their governments will have little ability to do much if theyve given up sovereignty on climate action. Washington often doesnt heed the wishes of American citizens. It doesnt care a whit what Canadian and Mexican citizens think. If Ottawa is pursuing a continental clean-energy deal, it must widely consult with Canadians before ratifying it. Gordon Laxer is author of After the Sands. Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians and founding director of the Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta. A cat owner in the UK has taken to tsFacebook[/url to explain his cat's shopping preferences. Gracie likes to spend her days in Essex browsing local stores and often finds a spot to take a nap. Karol Rozycki, the baby who died in tragic circumstances in Kerry this week, will be laid to rest in Poland later today. The 11-month-old was found by his mum Anna last Sunday when she returned home from work. Armed police guarded the courtroom as a man was charged with attempting to murder a prison officer in the North. Christopher Alphonsos Robinson, 45, yawned and refused to stand as he was accused of the East Belfast bombing on March 4. Officers trained for dealing with riots stood between a crowd of his supporters and the main body of the city centre court room. The victim, a married father-of-three aged 52, required surgery for severe leg injuries after an explosive device detonated under the van he was driving. A dissident republican group calling itself the New IRA, which opposes the peace process, claimed to have carried out the bombing. Police have warned there could be more attacks ahead of this month's centenary of the Easter Rising. They said they had prevented a number of murder bids since last week's blast. The threat to members of the security forces in Northern Ireland is severe from gunmen opposed to the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement which largely ended decades of the Troubles. Senior officers have said there are several hundred active dissidents. A sizeable group of his friends applauded Robinson, from Aspen Park in Dunmurry in West Belfast, and jeered at the judge at Belfast Magistrates' Court as the defendant was led away in handcuffs. He was charged after undergoing 16 interviews, his lawyer told the courtroom. He said "no evidence was actually put" to the defendant to link him to the attack. The suspect was also accused of possession of an explosive with the intention to endanger life. No bail application was made and he was remanded in custody by district judge Harry McKibbin after a detective sergeant connected him to the charges. The accused is due to appear via video link before the same court on Friday April 1 for a review hearing. Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and John Kasich have suggested they may not support Donald Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee, as violence at the front-runner's rallies deepened the party's chaotic chasm. Tensions ran high at Mr Trump's latest rally, when US Secret Service agents briefly formed a protective ring around the candidate, then left the stage and allowed him to continue speaking at an airport hangar near Dayton, Ohio. It was not immediately clear why the agents rushed the stage to surround Mr Trump, who appeared to jolt after hearing something coming from the audience behind him. A defiant Mr Trump has denied that he has encouraged violence at his events. But the scenes from his aborted rally in Chicago on Friday night appeared to be a final straw for some rivals who had pledged, despite deep concerns about his qualifications, to support the billionaire businessman if he were to become the nominee. Mr Rubio, a Florida senator, said it was "getting harder every day" to keep his word. Mr Kasich, the Ohio governor, said the "toxic environment" Mr Trump is creating "makes it very, extremely difficult" to support him. "To see Americans slugging themselves at a political rally deeply disturbed me," Mr Kasich said while campaigning in Cincinnati. "We're better than that." The extraordinary shift by the two came just a few days before Tuesday's elections in five states, including Florida, Ohio and Illinois. Mr Trump insisted he had done nothing to exacerbate tensions, despite having previously encouraged his supporters to aggressively - and sometimes physically - stop protesters from interrupting his raucous rallies. "I don't take responsibility. Nobody's been hurt at our rallies," Mr Trump told CNN late on Friday, one of several interviews he did as cable networks broadcast footage of the skirmishes both inside and outside the Chicago arena where he had planned to speak. In Dayton, the audience chanted Trump's name as the Secret Service agents rushed the stage. Mr Trump did not explain what had happened, but said: "Thank you for the warning. I was ready for 'em, but it's much better if the cops do it, don't we agree?" The brash billionaire's unexpected political success has caused turmoil in the Republican Party. Most leaders expected his populist appeal would fade as nominating contests began and largely avoided criticising even his most extreme comments out of fear of alienating his supporters. But after 24 primary contests, Mr Trump has only grown stronger and leads his rivals in the all-important delegate count. The delegates will select the party's nominee at the Republican national convention in July in Cleveland. Republican leaders are grasping for a last-ditch idea to stop Mr Trump from claiming the nomination, from talking about a contested convention to discussing whether to rally around a yet-to-be-determined third-party candidate. All are long shots at best and would likely have the effect of ripping the Republican Party apart in irreparable ways. Mr Rubio and Mr Kasich must win their home state contests on Tuesday in order to stay in the race. Texas senator Ted Cruz, closest to Mr Trump in the delegate count, has urged both to drop out so he can take on the front-runner in a head-to-head contest. Mr Cruz said late on Friday that Mr Trump has created "an environment that encourages this sort of nasty discourse." "When the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that is escalates," he said. The chaos in Chicago was sparked in part by Mr Trump's decision to cancel his rally after skirmishes broke out in the crowd that, unlike past Trump events, was packed with protesters. Some isolated confrontations took place afterwards. Police reported arresting five people. Many anti-Trump attendees had rushed on to the floor of the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion, jumping up and down with their arms up in the air. Syrian Opposition leaders have agreed to attend peace talks in Geneva next week. Tuesday marks five years since the uprising began - with upwards of 400,000 people said to have died since. The move has been welcomed by the US however concern is being raised over continued airstrikes by the Assad regime. Spokesman for the America Department of State John Kirby John Kirby spoke to reporters earlier: We welcome todays announcement by the negotiations committee, that it will participate in next weeks negotiations in Geneva. However, we remain deeply concerned by chronic and reoccurring actions to undermine some of these efforts, and to inflict more suffering upon the Syrian people. We strongly condemn the Assad regimes ongoing practice of removing badly needed medical supplies from the emergency humanitarian aid deliveries that are actually made. Meanwhile a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Syria will take place in Dublin this lunchtime. Valerie Hughes of the Irish Syria Solidarity Movement explains why they've organised today's event: Were trying to raise awareness with the Irish people and in solidarity with members of the Syrian community, as to why Syrian refugees are here and the importance of acknowledging what they are going through. Mere weeks after a mansion on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah set a new record for the most expensive property to be sold in... MOSCOW: The rouble traded near 61 to the dollar on Friday and strengthened against the euro and yuan, supported by a... BRUSSELS: EU leaders will debate how to handle Europes energy shock Thursday, with capitals at loggerheads over... A Canberra climate change expert has helped raise the alarm about the threats to key crops in sub-Saharan Africa posed by a hotter globe. Rising temperatures and volatility could undermine the viability of some staple crops within a decade, the research found, in a region where more than 200 million people were already hungry or undernourished and two-thirds relied on agriculture for their livelihood. Professor Mark Howden, director of the ANU's Climate Change Institute, grows corn and beans in his own backyard. Credit:Jay Cronan The Australian National University's Climate Change Institute director, Professor Mark Howden, was the sole Australian co-author of the report that urged immediate changes by farmers and governments. "Without significant and urgent transformation of agricultural practices, food security will become a major issue for millions more people," he said. Society's failure to talk about the fiction of porn had contributed to unacceptable rates of unwanted sex and gender inequality among Australian youth, a sexual health advocate said. Comedian Nelly Thomas told an almost-all-female audience at the Australian National University this week the nation's "schizophrenic" approach to sex where it was everywhere apart from in serious conversations meant teens were left to learn for themselves, often from the "toxic" male-controlled porn industry. Nelly Thomas, who has written comedies The Condom Dialogues and No Means No Show, said too many young women felt obliged to provide sex. "With porn, you will literally never see someone say no, they will do what is asked of them, and worse they will say no but mean yes," she said. "If you have teenagers in your life and you're not talking to them about porn, you're failing them." Tanya Hutchins hadn't worked in eight years when she walked into an ANZ branch in mid-2010. But she left with an $800,000 loan, and now she stands to lose her home. Ms Hutchins was receiving Centrelink payments at the time, but ANZ records say she was a successful businesswoman earning $180,000 a year with a million-dollar property portfolio. She and her husband, Laurie Rounds, say bank employees deliberately ensnared her in a loan she could not afford. In a lawsuit filed in the County Court, the couple claim the saga began after a meeting at the Elsternwick Hotel in 2010, where they were encouraged to invest in an off-the-plan apartment project in Caulfield East. Property developer Charles "Chas" Sheridan Dale and consultant Shady Elmahmoud allegedly arranged a meeting for the couple with an ANZ lending officer to arrange a $300,00 loan to purchase two apartments. The couple was told the units were supposed to double in value. The highlight of CBD's week was going to be the life insurance conference being organised this Wednesday by the lobbyists for the big banks' wealth operations, the Financial Services Council (FSC). But the exquisitely timed conference will be missing the match-up that everyone wanted to see. CommInsure boss Helen Troup was due to line up on a panel with ASIC deputy chairman Peter Kell to discuss the industry landscape for 2016. Juba, South Sudan: Forces loyal to South Sudan's government enacted a "scorched earth" policy that included rape, abuse and killings of civilians during more than two years of civil war, according to a United Nations report. The UN Human Rights Office documented the "shocking" scale of sexual violence in the world's newest nation, with 1300 reports of rape recorded in one state alone in five months, it said Friday on its website. It cited "credible sources" as saying that militia and government forces were allowed to rape women instead of being paid wages. Many of the actions could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the report. South Sudan government soldiers in Koch, Unity state, in 2015. Credit:AP While "all parties in the conflict" were behind violations, in 2015 "government forces and associated militia bore the greatest responsibility", the office said. The report recommends that UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein request the UN Security Council to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on South Sudan. Malaak Ayuen Ajok, a South Sudanese army spokesman, said the report was not "well-balanced" and looks like "a conspiracy against the government" and military. He said locations had changed hands with rebels during the fighting and that assigning blame for incidents was difficult. "We have always asked the UN to bring the complaints and we act on them, but they do not want" to do so, he said by phone from the capital, Juba. Ginnifer Goodwin voices Judy Hopps, a bunny who gets a shot at her dream of becoming a cop thanks to the city of Zootopia's new Mammal Inclusion Initiative. Jason Bateman supplies the voice of Judy's underachieving nemesis/sidekick, a small-time hustler fox named Nick Wilde; Idris Elba is Judy's boss, the intimidating Cape buffalo police chief; and Jenny Slate is the assistant mayor, a sheep just trying to give another prey animal a hoof up in the world. Howard pitched the film to Disney chief creative officer John Lasseter five years ago, on the hopes of working on a movie like one of his favourites, the 1973 Disney animated version of Robin Hood, but using the tools of modern computer animation. "(Lasseter) said, 'I will fully support any movie that has animals running around in tiny clothes'," Howard says. "He hugged me and picked me up and carried me around. He was very enthusiastic." We thought that's very much like human beings, you have this predator group and prey group. Byron Howard A research trip to Kenya specifically a watering hole where zebras and lions peacefully coexisted inspired the filmmakers. "The funny thing we noticed was that during the day lions would come in and drink right next to zebra and gazelle, all these animals they normally eat, and it was fine," Howard said. "The rules are different during the day. We thought that's very much like human beings, you have this predator group and prey group. "They don't always get along, but for some things they have to figure out how to coexist. We started thinking about the predator group and prey group and if they evolved, would they put that deep-set fear about each other aside completely or would it still be there somehow?" The filmmakers brought in an array of experts as they designed the world, from zoologists, who advised on how each species should move, to specialists on the Americans With Disabilities Act, who helped construct a city where a five-centimetre character and an eight-metre character could coexist, to heating, ventilation and airconditioning system designers, who puzzled over how to build a tundra neighbourhood next to a desert one. Female police officers spoke with the filmmakers about challenges they faced including having trouble finding male officers willing to partner with them. In the case of Judy Hopps, who also faces difficulty being taken seriously as a police officer, animators used small scale to dramatise her struggle, as she struggled to hop up on a chair in the police department. "We go more species-ist rather than gender-based," said Howard. "The fact that Judy is actually struggling against this is pretty relatable for a lot of people." One dilemma the directors faced was whether to have animals play to or against stereotype. Ultimately, they decided on a mix of the two slow-as-molasses sloths, hilariously, staff the Zootopia DMV in a scene that will resonate for anyone who has ever waited to renew a driver's licence. But Judy Hopps is the opposite of a timid bunny. And some animals like a fierce, tiny shrew who plays a Vito Corleone type, are an amusing mix of biological accuracy and visual joke. "For a while we were saying, 'Every animal should be their cliche,'" Moore says. "But that's not servicing the theme at all. And then it turned into, 'Every animal should be the opposite of their cliche.' It was a journey to get to the point of, the world is not black and white. There's so much grey. "So maybe in the world of Zootopia, it should be that sometimes they are cliche, sometimes they aren't. That gives us that gray that better reflects our world. It makes Judy's struggle and journey more authentic. Are we just who we're born to be, or do we have control over our destiny?'" In the writers' room, the filmmakers tangled over their own experiences with bias. The "articulate" joke, for instance, came from one white writer's mother, who often applied the word to non-white people she admired. "We liked this idea of Judy being a character who thinks she's all together, but she's flawed," Moore said. "She's like Pinocchio, she's very appealing, but she makes tons of mistakes. We wanted someone who's going to learn something. Story sessions were in general the kind of opening up of oneself, talking about the things we're afraid of." Another scene, in which Judy Hopps breaks down crying, inspired a conversation about how female characters express emotion, with Lee acting the scene in the writers' room and supervising animator Kira Lehtomaki toying with how to communicate that the character was trying to hold herself back. Young, impatient and ferociously hungry. That was the crowd at Freddie Gibbs' sold-out Manning Bar show but it nicely reflected their adored subject too. Freddie Gibbs was late, drunk and obnoxious at his Sydney show. But the audience seemed to like it. Gibbs, a 33-year-old Indiana rapper, may be a decade older than most of this audience but his career is just taking off after 2013's ESGN paved the way for the well-received 2014 album Pinata (produced by Madlib) and then last November's Shadow of a Doubt. Three albums in three years, each packed with rapid-fire tracks of about three minutes. Did someone say impatient? He arrived on stage just after 11pm late, drunk and obnoxious. And we lapped up every bit of it. His attention span was shot, jumping between a capella raps, heaving beats, rambling banter and 30-second glimpses of tracks like Rob Me a Nigga and Deeper that instantly had the small room going wild. The shirt quickly came off and the rhymes, despite his inebriated state, were still spectacularly proficient and impenetrable. He was hungry, lithe and deliciously good. A $2.7 billion dental program that has provided 1 million Australian children with free dental care could face the chop in the next budget, warns Australia's peak dental body. As a result of the two-year-old program, many children who have never seen a dentist before are presenting with decayed teeth requiring holes and extractions, say dentists. More than a million children far fewer than the anticipated 3 million have received care under the means-tested scheme since it was introduced in 2014. Nearly all those children had been bulk-billed, and 80 per cent were treated by private dentists. Health Minister Sussan Ley told a meeting of health and dental groups last week that she didn't think the means-tested scheme designed to reach 3 million children in low- to middle-income families was an effective use of funds and foreshadowed further changes. Lieutenant Erin Mains is no miscreant, and doesn't particularly want to break the law. But the Turnbull government's asylum seeker policies may force her into it. Her Salvation Army Church at Richmond is among about 115 church groups across Australia that stand ready to help harbour asylum seekers if the government tries to force them back to Nauru or Manus Island. Lieutenant Erin Mains of the Salvation Army ready for her asylum seeker training drill at the Richmond Community Church Credit:Darrian Traynor They have formally offered to provide sanctuary or other aid such as food, clothing or spiritual support risking criminal sanctions and raids by police or border officials. Almost 1200 religious leaders, people from their congregations and members of the public have registered for training in capital cities on Sunday in how to respond if authorities seek to enter church halls, vestries and other church buildings where asylum seekers have sought refuge. The analysis of voting patterns from July 2014 to last month shows the Greens have only voted with the government 6 per cent of the time. Labor, on the other hand, voted with the Coalition 38 per cent of the time. A spokesperson for the Greens said Senator Dastyari could make whatever claims he liked but "they sound pretty silly coming from someone who has actually voted with the Coalition more than a third of the time". However under Senator Di Natale the Greens have done contentious deals with the government on pensions and tax transparency. Now they have done a deal with the Coalition on Senate voting reform, which is expected to pass Parliament this week. The changes will make it all but impossible for micro-party candidates to get elected and could pave the way for a crossbench clean-out in a July double dissolution election. Labor is opposed to the bill and is planning on filibustering to prevent its passage. But the government says Parliament will not rise until the bill is passed, setting the scene for a rancorous debate that could stretch into the weekend. As much as it hurts our exporters when the Aussie dollar spikes, somehow it makes the rest of us feel a bit richer (similar to when house prices surge, even though you can't get at the money unless you sell). But it's true for those planning an overseas jaunt this coming holiday. You can now hit the slopes with a bit more cash in your pocket. Credit:Amriphoto Theoretically, just one week added 3 per cent to the US currency you can get, as our dollar hit a year-to-date high approaching US75c. It's pulled back a little now. But what is the reality of pocketing extra money for your adventure? I commissioned data house mozo.com.au to exclusively analyse where you can best cash in, quite literally, on the recent dollar strength. They were rebellious, experimental, free spirited and willing to admit their artistic naivety - that was what gave them their edge. They called themselves the Geniale Dilletanten: the "brilliant amateurs". Berlin's 1980s generation of creative youths, who dressed in subversive fashions and made avant-guard electronic music, are the subject of a travelling multimedia exhibition curated by Goethe-Institut Australia, on now at Ambush Gallery in Sydney's Central Park. Revelling German youth from the travelling exhibition Geniale Dilletanten. Credit:Courtesy of Goethe-Institut The alternative art scene, with its agenda of intentional provocation and protest, emerged out of art and music schools in Berlin in the early 1980s and quickly became an international phenomenon. Artists challenged concepts of genre, gender and stereotype and wrote lyrics in German to protest against the mainstream western music. Electronic sound equipment had just arrived on the scene and performance artists and music groups experimented with the exciting new medium. They didn't rely on arts institutions of present their work: they started their own galleries, record labels, magazines and night clubs. The "Geniale Dilletanten" exhibition is a comprehensive survey exploring the many art forms that the subculture encompassed - from filmmaking to music, to fashion and costume, to visual art. At the age of 12, in a room full of doctors, Geraldine Hewitt dared to ask where she came from. She was told to "shut up, and be grateful you are alive". The child of an anonymous sperm donor, whose records were deliberately destroyed by the clinic, Ms Hewitt, 33, has no trust left for the IVF industry. She is among the donor-conceived children now accusing the Baird government, too, of abandoning them after a backdown on a promise to protect the records that provide vital links to their genetic origins. Professor Steve Running penned an opinion piece in the March 5 Billings Gazette in which he asked readers to sign petitions to place proposed Initiative 180 on the ballot. He began with a lengthy discussion of something he knows a great deal about climate change and ended with a call to support I-180, something he clearly knows little about. It was disappointing to see a respected voice on climate change advocate a rewrite of Montana law when the proposed rewrite is not only unreasonable, but would have a profound adverse impact on NorthWesterns electric customers. Initiative I-180 is a poorly conceived attempt to rewrite the 2005 Renewable Power Production and Rural Economic Development Act. That legislation, championed by then-state Sen. Jon Tester, created the states renewable portfolio standard. It effectively applies to only two utilities in Montana: NorthWestern Energy and Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. It required them to have a generation resource portfolio with at least a 15 percent renewable energy component by 2015. Of critical importance, Testers legislation had a cost cap. If renewable energy developers demanded too high a price for their power, the two utilities did not have to buy it to meet the 15 percent statutory mandate. Dams wouldn't count NorthWestern Energy already relies on renewable resources to meet the majority of its customers energy needs. All told, NorthWestern owns, or has under contract, 237 megawatts of wind generation resources and 479 megawatts of hydroelectric generation resources, about two-thirds of its total generating capacity. With its dams, NorthWestern will meets its customers needs with an energy mix which is about 44 percent hydro, 13 percent wind, and 43 percent fossil fuel. The authors of I-180 have a huge trick up their sleeve. Under the language of the proposed initiative, NorthWesterns recently purchased 442 megawatts of hydroelectric generation cannot be counted towards meeting the proposed renewable mandate in the initiative until NorthWestern achieves an 80 percent renewable energy portfolio. For a generation resource to count as an eligible renewable resource under the 2005 act, it had to be constructed after Jan. 1, 2005. In their proposed rewrite of the act, the authors of I-180 left that provision intact so that NorthWesterns recently acquired hydro facilities could not be counted in meeting the 50 percent renewable mandate for 2030. Cost cap removal Because I-180 does not allow the use of the dams to meet the proposed standards until it has achieved an 80 percent renewable portfolio, NorthWestern would have to acquire significant additional power that it does not need to serve customers to meet a 2030 standard it currently exceeds. For example, I-180 would establish a 37 percent renewable standard for year 2024. To meet that standard in eight years, without counting its hydro facilities, NorthWestern would have to acquire the generating capacity of more than three Judith Gap wind farms, at a total cost in excess of $1 billion. The proposed initiative also repeals the cost cap, which was an integral part of the 2005 legislation. Tester knew a cost cap was essential to protect MDU, NorthWestern and their customers. And, because I-180 only applies to about 65 percent of the electric customers in Montana, the burden would be even more unreasonable. The supporters of I-180 will likely claim they have invented a new cost cap a 2 percent limit on the rate increases that NorthWestern can seek. That isnt a cost cap. That is a limit on cost recovery. The supporters of I-180 are unrealistically contending that the state can in one breath impose hundreds of millions of dollars in costs upon NorthWestern, and in the next breath refuse to allow it to recover those state-imposed costs in rates. I-180 isnt really about climate change. It is political theater. It is not only a bad idea, but a discredit to Montana. A line up change for a ticketed Engineers Australia debate at a CBD hotel between the two leading lord mayoral contenders has seen an invitation granted to Green's lord mayoral candidate Ben Pennings, despite being excluded from the event on Thursday. Liberal National Party Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and Labor candidate Rod Harding agreed to a lunchtime debate on Tuesday, however an invitation to the event was not extended to Greens candidate Ben Pennings, whose party has candidates in every ward. Greens lord mayoral candidate Ben Pennings. Credit:Michelle Smith Mr Pennings said he "wasn't surprised" they had excluded him from the original invitation, citing the Greens' $491m infrastructure plan that was "realistic" and "opened up" the public transport system. "I am not surprised they excluded us, I think we are winning the infrastructure debate," he said. Half of the extra $620,000 promised for environmental protection by the ALP would fund a fifth council officer to coordinate Brisbane volunteer groups caring for the Boondall and Tinchi Tamba Wetlands on Brisbane's north. ALP mayoral candidate Rod Harding said $320,000 was earmarked to pay a full-time officer $80,000 over four years. ALP Brisbane Mayoral Candidate Rod Harding launches environmental policy Credit:ALP Another $100,000 would fund work to link the northeast wetland areas. Currently, four council officers direct the work of 11 catchment care groups. Labor is also promising $100,000 to build corridors over and under main roads to allow the endangered squirrel possum to move between pockets of habitat at Lemke Road, Taigum, and Wynnum Road near the Minnippi Parklands. Grammar alone reached settlements with more than 70 former students. Statement to the commission: Donald Francis . However, during the legal actions, no current or former teacher at Brisbane Grammar is believed to have gone on the record to admit they knew of Lynch's paedophile tendencies, according to lawyers who have worked on the cases. Now in a startling move, a popular former mathematics teacher at the school, Donald Francis, has submitted a statement confirming a student had told him about paedophile behaviour by Lynch. Rampage: Abuse victim Nigel Parodi. Credit:Ten News Lawyers say the admission confirms for the first time that someone working for the school had knowledge of the abuse, potentially having an impact on the school's liability. Mr Francis, who taught at the school from 1973 to 1981, did not go on to tell his superiors of the abuse, fearing they would not take him seriously and because he believed Lynch's explanation. Nigel Parodi shooting wildly. Credit:Ten News A student, who was having behaviour issues, had made the complaint to Mr Francis. Mr Francis said the incident happened after he sent the student to see Lynch for counselling as per normal practice. Police during Nigel Parodi's rampage Credit:Ten News When the student returned, Mr Francis said the boy vowed never to go back to Lynch because, he said, the school counsellor had asked him to remove his pants. "[The student] was not a great communicator and he looked down saying he was not going back there [to Lynch] again," stated Mr Francis. The police car that Nigel Parodi shot. Credit:Ten News "I asked him why ever not and my recollection was that he said; "He [Lynch] asked me to drop my pants. "I was certainly taken aback by this response but really did not know in the small space between lessons how to pursue this." Mr Francis says he agonised over what to do and discussed it with his wife and his general practitioner. The doctor told him that the actions of Lynch were a "breach of allowable behaviour" by a counsellor, Mr Francis said. Mr Francis said he was concerned as he was aware that the situation was delicate because Lynch had a good name, Lynch's wife was a counsellor at Girls Grammar School and Lynch himself had children at both schools. Mr Francis said he decided to confront Lynch. "I went up to see him near his room adjacent to the Great Hall and told him of my concern about [the student's] report to me," Mr Francis said. Mr Francis said Lynch responded in "his most confident waggish style" claiming the student sought reassurance that his genitals were normal and Lynch was merely giving reassurance. Mr Francis says he was relieved at the explanation and indicated that he would not be taking the matter further. He said his concern "later turned to sorrow" when Lynch killed himself. He indicated he did not go to authorities after news of the abuse broke as he was not sure that his story "would have added anything". Mr Francis said he believed if he had gone to then headmaster, Max Howell, to report the abuse he would have been rebuffed "in that peremptory way that Max Howell defended his school against any criticism". Mr Howell, who died in 2011, denied knowing about any abuse by the school's counsellor. Mr Francis stated: "Like many people I am very sad that I could possibly have curtailed this behaviour that causes so much heartache and trauma but did not have sufficient grounds to do so." Contacted on Friday at his Brisbane home Mr Francis said he regretted not coming forward sooner but had not believed that his story was important enough to do so. Brisbane lawyer Frank Carroll represented a number of victims who sued Brisbane Grammar in the mid to late 2000s. Mr Carroll said at the time of the actions it was understood the school did not make any admission of knowledge about Lynch's abuse. He said if lawyers representing victims had known that a teacher had been told, then that would have been very helpful. "Any sniff of awareness would have helped us. It would have helped us in giving more confirmation of the abuse and led to more liability on the school," Mr Carroll said. "It would have been encouraging to know that the curtain of silence might be pierced more easily than we thought." Mr Carroll said he had represented a number of victims of the school. "Their matters were resolved with confidential settlements," said Mr Carroll, who is now a consultant to Carroll Fairon Solicitors in Brisbane. Brisbane Grammar declined to comment on whether compensation claims would be affected by the admission. A Grammar spokesman said: "The matters raised, including this statement, remain under consideration by the royal commission, which is yet to release its report into the case study. "We respectfully await that report and any findings available to the commission, in recognition of the established process of this inquiry." Mr Francis was approached by the royal commission in late November to give a statement. He said a friend of his who knew of his experience with Lynch had told the commission. Mr Francis said that, when he was approached, he agreed immediately to tell his story. Numerous students have previously claimed to have alerted teachers at the school to the abuse. But none of the teachers nominated have ever admitted to being told. One document submitted to the commission lists seven different students who were plaintiffs in legal actions as having had significant conversations about the counselling at various times. One student said he asked a teacher about the counselling and the teacher then stated: "I've heard rumours" and tried to induce the student to "join the Church of Scientology". Another student in the document alleged when he told one teacher that Lynch had molested him, the teacher replied, "That's rubbish." In another case a student said a teacher's reaction to the what was going on was to say, "That's all part of the program." A number of teachers named by students in commission documents as having known of the abuse have given statements denying they knew Lynch was abusing children. No student is believed to have named Mr Francis as having known. Mr Francis said he has since reconnected with the student who made the initial complaint to him. An exhibition that represents and celebrates the identity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women has opened at Queensland's State Library. Artist Boneta-Marie Mabo, granddaughter of Indigenous land rights campaigner Eddie Mabo, has created a visual arts exhibition to represent the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women's identities after coming across historical portraits of Indigenous women without names during her residency at the State Library in 2015. Boneta-Marie Mabo with her previous work of her grandfather Eddie Mabo. "Through research at the State Library I came across pictures of women without a name or called "Aboriginal woman"," Ms Mabo said. "When journals were referenced, a lot of the time Aboriginal women were referred, when they were referred at all, in a derogatory way. A Queensland man has died while riding a motorcycle in rural Tasmania. The man, 24, came off the motorcycle on a sweeping right-hand bend and hit a tree on Lake Leake Highway, about 20km from Campbell Town in the state's east. A man has died in a motorcycle accident in Tasmania. The man, from Sharon in Queensland, was riding with a group which was heading to a campsite. Police believe speed was a factor in the crash. The works of William Shakespeare have had an enduring relationship with the penal system. From the presence of his works in prison libraries, to famous prisoners using his words as succour during their periods of incarceration. Prisoners perform with the Brisbane-based Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble. Credit:Benjamin Prindable When former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was imprisoned for a decade he famously said Shakespeare was his most intimate companion and chief source of comfort. But for the past three decades there has been a movement where some prisoners' relationship with Shakespeare has become much more involved. Three people were airlifted to hospitals after separate accidents involving farm animals on Saturday. A man in his 50s was trampled by a cow on a property in Murgon. The RACQ CareFlight helicopter flew to Murgon at 3.30pm and transported him to Toowoomba Hospital in a stable condition. An RACQ CareFlight crew helps a man in his 50s who was trampled by a cow. Credit:RACQ CareFlight A woman in her 20s was gored by a bull on a property north of Laidley, suffering a penetrating injury to her groin. The Brisbane-based CareFlight crew, with a critical-care medical team on board, treated the woman before flying her to Princess Alexandra Hospital for further treatment. Three men have been charged with assault after three police officers were injured in a scuffle at Bribie Island early Saturday morning. Police allege the three men were obstructing paramedics in the car park of a hotel at Sandstone Point at about 1.45am. Three men will face court over alleged assaults on police officers. Credit:Greg Newington During the scuffle, a male senior contestable was kicked in the head, another male senior constable was kicked in the groin and another male senior constable sustained an injury to his finger. Three men were taken into custody at the scene, and all three officers were transported to Caboolture Hospital for treatment of their injuries. They say twos a party and threes a crowd but that isn't the case for the 17-year-old Pridmore triplets who are all proud members of 232 Squadron of the Australian Air Force Cadets. It couldn't be a better time for Justin, Kyle and Liam to be involved with the cadets, with 2016 marking the organisation's 75th year of service. Liam Pridmore, centre, with his brothers Justin and Kyle. Credit:Doris Pridmore Justin and Kyle recently completed the Cadet Sergeants Leadership course at the RAAF Base in Amberley, while Liam attended the Cadet under Officers Leadership course and now outranks his 'older' brothers. Liam said the Air Force had allowed him to see the possibilities available to him in the future, with a career in engineering set firmly in his sights. Brisbane Skyline. Credit:Rosemary Kennedy and Mark Thomso I really like the idea of getting inspired by nature not necessarily having nature subservient to use," she said. "My research is concerned with creating a functional environment that builds the resilience of a city to protect us from heat, weather, flooding, smog, mosquito-borne viruses and more," she said. Futuristic outlook: Brisbane Skyline with living walls. Credit:Rosemary Kennedy and Mark Thomso "It's more than window dressing to just make a city look pretty. "Nature has had billions of years of evolution and learning from mistakes, humans are so young on this planet, we can take a fair bit of learning from nature and copy it." South Bank is an example of a green pocket in Brisbane. Credit:Tourism and Events Queensland Dr Desha said there were numerous instances in nature that were able to be adapted to improve our cities and protect them. "In parklands and street environments trees can help dissipate wind, they can help make it less windy for people in those environments because leaves and branches are able to take on that energy," she said. "In city environments trees can also work to help hold infrastructure up, in the New Orleans floods where there were trees those streets did a lot better in the floods because the roots helped hold the houses up and buffer the infrastructure against the flooding." Dr Desha said plants could also play a major part in pollution reduction in our cities. "In terms of being on the outside walls of high rises, having species that can trap pollution that would then get washed off and collected into a stormwater treatment device would be great," she said. "It is like sticky tape that is washed regularly that could keep the air in our streets cleaner. "In every suburb we have places where people gather to relax and eat and be outdoors and it is those spaces around Brisbane where you have cars driving straight through the middle of them and people are sitting on the curb enjoying their coffee. "If you could colour in the air pollution that is going on in those environments I don't think people would sit there. "Having screens of trees between the roads and those eateries could ease that pollution." Dr Desha said most biometric innovations came from the simplest of origins. "Over a decade ago, Australian engineer Jay Harman was scuba diving on the West Australian coastline and was in the water and he looked at the sea kelp withstanding strong currents and thought the root system must be so strong but he was able to pull it out with two fingers," Dr Desha said. "He was having trouble standing still but this kelp was anchored, they took it back to the lab and realised the kelp was moving in a laminar flow (a smooth and regular flow) and out of that discovery, he and his team innovated one of the most world changing products on the planet. "It is called the Lilly impeller and is the opposite of a propeller. An impeller moves something from one place to another using a laminar flow. "We use 60 per cent of the world's energy to move stuff from one place to another and if we can do it in a smooth sheet flow rather than a turbulent flow then that changes the way we move energy around our planet." Dr Desha said there were example small pockets of green nature-loving environments ('biophilic urbanism') in Brisbane, such as the on the roof of the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital, on James Street in Fortitude Valley and in the South Bank parklands, however they needed to start spreading to the more congested parts Brisbane. "We have such a green city, however in the places where it is really built up we share very similar problem with cities around the world," she said. "I call it the urban desert effect where you have so many high-rises and cement jungles. "The next step is to take our natural green pockets of Brisbane and spread the natural love." The rumblings over an early federal election are getting louder out of Canberra, and one of the voices joining the chorus is the outgoing Member for Dunkley, Bruce Billson. The former small business minister was unceremoniously ousted from his cabinet position in the wake of Malcolm Bligh Turnbull's prime ministerial coup back in September, and has since joined Tony Abbott on the back bench. Former small business minister Bruce Billson is helming the franchise industry's peak body. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Billson, in a fit of pique, announced his resignation from federal parliament at the next election. Which we know could be very soon. That date can't come soon enough for Billson, who is eyeing Kate Carnell's old gig as chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI). Elderton wants survivors to know of the healing that justice can bring. As a child, Di was terrified of her father. She lived in fear of what would happen to her or her mother if she told. For a long time she held the secret close. The oral sex. The shame. The rat-a-tat-tat. Finally, years later, after her parents had separated, she told her mother. Her mother's face showed disbelief. She told her not to tell anyone. Today, her mother struggles to look her in the eyes. And so it went. Her teenage friends wept but did not know what to do. Later, when she was an adult, lawyer friends warned against going to court. But most hurtfully, almost all of her Maltese family on both sides watched as she broke down in tears, then carried on as though the conversation had never happened. Her father's side wasn't even surprised at the news; they had guessed it, but they continued to support him. "The reaction was always shock," Elderton says. "It was 'Oh my god' but then it was just nothing. "It was like, 'don't discuss it again. It wasn't that big of a deal.' There was no checking in to see if I was OK. They never asked me about it again." Their reactions only compounded the fear she had carried as a child. "When you're a kid ... you go, if I tell anyone, no one will believe me," she explains, "but you work up the courage to tell someone ... It's really hard when people absolutely don't mention it again. I would just go, 'I shouldn't have said anything, because now I feel just awful.'" There were years of suffering. Anxiety, bulimia and nightmares. Abusive relationships. She didn't know who or even how to trust. Then she met Robert. About four months into their relationship, which began a decade ago, she walked into the lounge room on a Saturday afternoon and told him what had happened to her. Open, supportive, trusting. He wasn't like the others. "We have to resolve this," he said. Robert's victim impact statement says he wasn't shocked at the news. Her behaviour gave away that some kind of serious abuse had occurred in her life. "I was now faced with a simple choice," the statement says. "I could either help Di to face her past, and do so quickly, or choose a collective life embroiled in a daily battle of anxiety, trust issues and post-traumatic stress." The couple went on to have children. Two daughters. And it was her girls, Elderton says, who finally inspired her to act. "Having kids and having two girls especially was the catalyst." Three years ago, at 43, she nervously picked up the phone and called the police: "I'd like to report that I've been sexually abused." And so began her recovery. Wearing neat, smart clothing, her black hair tied back, Elderton details her abuse for this story matter-of-factly, but its enormous weight is palpable in her voice. Her victim impact statement makes sobering reading. One line stands out: "I constantly feel either judged or pitied for what was done to me." This is what Elderton wants to stop. "For society to change, I can't not come out and say this needs to be addressed and people need to support people ... That's what's allowed this whole culture to exist. It's no different than what's happening in the church. If we want to change it, we have to all stand together and make this thing spoken about." What Elderton does not want is your pity. She doesn't need it. For she has taken her power back. From the moment she walked into Fawkner police station on an autumn afternoon with Robert by her side, she says, the police listened to her and took her story seriously. First the gentle older male officer. Then, the young female detective, Louise Serrao, whose support and compassion helped get her get through the "hideous" process of making a statement and the three years of waiting between then and the final outcome. "When I first met Di, she was nervous, but she wasn't reluctant," Senior Constable Serrao says. "She was ready." The detective says reporting can be daunting for survivors of sexual assault, but that Victoria Police's response has dramatically changed in the past decade. Officers now listen without judgment and, most of all, believe them. "The change came when [Elderton] was making her statement, when someone, being me, sat down and listened ... and believed her. It was like a weight had come off her shoulders." Elderton only became stronger each time she told it. "Telling your story over and over again allows you to come to grips with it and process it," she says. "It's still awful and it's still frightening, but it becomes less shameful." The days in court were not easy. The defence lawyer "aggressively" grilled her for up to seven hours at a time and told her she had made it all up to punish her father for leaving her mother. Her father, whom she describes as "rotten to the core", denied the abuse throughout, and pleaded not guilty. Elderton slept little. Her fear her father would come and hurt her and her family was sometimes overwhelming But when the judge summed up the case in front of a jury and a handful of friends, she felt she had finally been heard. Alfred Zammit, now 69, was found guilty of multiple sexual offences, including carnal knowledge of a girl under 10, incest by parent, unlawfully indecently assaulting a girl and gross indecency in the presence of a girl under 16. The judge found he had shown no remorse. "You've not only done this to your only daughter, but ... you've been more than happy to watch her go through this all again," Elderton remembers him saying. In November, Zammit was jailed for 11 years, 7 of which were non-parole. These days, the nightmares have stopped. Elderton describes feeling lighter. Unburdened. Safe. "This whole lifetime of being dismissed," she says, "then ... the judge stands up there and apologises to you on behalf of the state. And that just heals so much." Victor Georgiadias was the 21st motorcyclist to die on Victorian roads this year. It's been a terrible year so far for deaths on motorcycles. By March 10 last year, only nine riders had died on Victorian roads. This year has seen a 133 per cent increase in the year-to-date toll. Police fear that last year's annual toll of 30 motorcycle deaths could be passed all too soon. Best mates: (from left) Chris Vasiliadis, Nicole Jacobs, Christo Sirilla and Nicholas Del-Raso mourn their friend Victor Georgiadias who died in a motorbike accident in Lalor on Saturday. Credit:Neelima Choahan At around 10am Saturday morning, Mr Georgiadias, a 44-year-old mechanic from Epping, was driving an unregistered dirt bike down Huskisson Avenue, near his childhood home, when he failed to take a right-hand turn. He was thrown from his bike and hit a power pole. Solar panels on roofs, compost bins in front yards: this tree-lined street is heartland for progressive Melbourne parents. In these affluent inner-city enclaves if the statistics are to be believed parents are less likely to vaccinate their children. Adam Bandt is not one of them. Sitting on his front porch in Flemington with nine-month-old daughter Wren and wife Claudia Perkins, the Greens federal MP for Melbourne is furious with anti-vaxxers. "By not vaccinating your child you're putting your child and my child at risk," he says. "The air is something we all share. You wouldn't dump your rubbish at a playground because you know it would affect the kids there." Constable Scott Mason's world has changed - with a new baby and a orphaned kangaroo coming into his life in the same week. The constable, who is stationed in Cue, 650km northeast of Perth, ended up with the Joey after its mother died when she was hit by a truck. The joey survived the impact inside its mother's pouch and was rescued. It has now latched on to the local constable and hops around the police station following Scott wherever he goes. Video of the joey climbing into the Scott's t-shirt as if it was a pouch has been posted on the WA Police Facebook site: Police have charged a second person over the death of Kuol Akut after a party in Girrawheen on February 19. Detectives from the Major Crime Squad arrested the 17-year-old, who is from Marangaroo, on Friday and charged him with murder. Kuol Akut was killed at the Girrawheen party Credit:WA Police He is due to appear in the Perth Children's Court on Saturday. An 18-year-old has already been charged with murder over Kuol Akut's death. Havana: The European Union and Cuba signed an agreement in Havana on Friday to normalise relations, paving the way for the 28-member bloc to establish full economic co-operation and aid with the Communist-run Caribbean island. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini witnessed the signing of the pact, which will replace a policy imposed by Europe 20 years ago that pushed for changes to Cuba's one-party political system. People walk amid renovation work in Havana, Cuba, ahead of a visit by Barack Obama. Credit:AP "This is a historic day for bilateral relations," Mr Mogherini said, shortly before EU negotiator Christian Leffler and Cuban deputy foreign minister Abelardo Moreno signed the deal. The agreement marks another achievement for Cuba on the international stage after its 2014 detente with the United States and the renegotiation of its debt with creditors from the Paris Club of wealthy nations in December. Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn before the Labour Party's leadership contest in September. Credit:Getty Images Last time I spoke to West it was in June last year when she had just made her maiden speech to Parliament, having retaken the inner-north London seat of Hornsey and Wood Green from the Liberal Democrats, as around her Labour sunk to a devastating general election loss. An expat Australian who joined British Labour age 30, rising through local government, West said then she hadn't yet decided who she supported in the upcoming leadership fight. British Prime Minister David Cameron behaves almost as if there is no opposition. Credit:Getty Images Now she is shadow foreign minister, having decided to back Corbyn. "I came back from summer holidays and looked at all the candidates, and I just felt that Jeremy's campaign had the most sense of vigour about it," she says. She noted how many young people were associated with his campaign. It wasn't a vote-counting exercise, so much as a sense that this was where Labour should be, their concerns were Labour's true concerns: the incredible cost of housing, the unfair cost of education, the rising cost of healthcare. "People just feel as though the older generation has let them down ... they feel traditional politics has let them down," West says. She sees in Corbyn an old-fashioned, "authentic" (she uses that word a lot to describe him) leader. "People to some degree are rejecting the centre ... because so much funding has gone from the basics and a lot of the old certainties just aren't there any more," West says. She sees an opportunity for the party to win support, not just from the poor and underprivileged, but from the middle classes: "Parents can see their children will not be able to live near them, or look after them in their older age because they just can't afford it." But, of course, West isn't blind. It would take an absurd effort of self-delusion to believe Labour is united behind its leader and settling onto a steady path to victory in 2020. She sees two big challenges ahead. The first is finding consensus on some pretty divisive issues, such as Britain's nuclear arsenal. And the other, "to settle ourselves down a bit more so there aren't people internally who are talking out of turn". They're doing a big more than talking out of turn. This week Corbyn used the first Labour parliamentary party meeting of the year to appeal for unity and an end to sniping. His spokesman told the press afterwards that MPs had experienced a "sea change in attitudes". Within hours the sniping resumed. "There is nothing more important than ditching Jeremy Corbyn", one MP, newly elected last year, told the BBC. An ex-minister told the same reporter that "if Jeremy Corbyn leads us in to the 2020 election, it's all over for the party". Said another: "I find a new reason to despair every day." Political writers are speculating on who could replace Corbyn: his Mao's red book-waving shadow chancellor John McDonnell, perhaps, or his deputy Tom Watson (who said in Parliament a week ago "sadly I am not in the strongest of positions to lecture [a government] minister on handling splits in his own party"). But Corbyn's support among Labour members, as opposed to MPs, is stronger than ever. A YouGov poll of party members found he would win more handily in a leadership vote than he did the first time, with 62 per cent of the votes, his nearest rival (Hilary Benn) on just 15 per cent. The only way a leadership spill could hold is if it was engineered so Corbyn was not on the ticket: an act of such transparent skullduggery that it would taint the new leader from day one. So there is reason, not just faith, in West's confidence. She believes they have the time to make this work. "We need to win a few elections," is the first step and there are elections to be won. In December Labour won the Oldham byelection when some were predicting a UKIP steal. Labour's candidate for London mayor is ahead of his Conservative rival in the battle to replace Boris Johnson. Also in May are elections in Wales and Scotland that, while not promising a miracle, may at least show a basement to Labour's support that it can build on. And, not to forget that the Conservatives are expected to change leader sometime in the next few years, quite possibly in the wreckage of a horrendous Brexit debate. "We need to build up where we're at, what our core objectives are, and get ourselves back with a bit more confidence about what we believe in, what we stand for," West says. Geneva: The Buddhist group leading a global campaign of harassment against the Dalai Lama has called off its demonstrations and disbanded, according to a statement on its website. The announcement comes after a Reuters investigation revealed in December that China's ruling Communist Party backs the Buddhist religious sect behind the protests that have confronted the Dalai Lama in almost every country he visits. The investigation found that the sect had become a key instrument in China's campaign to discredit the Tibetan spiritual leader. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama speaks in Geneva on Friday. Credit:AP The directors of the International Shugden Community (ISC) had decided to "completely stop organising demonstrations against the Dalai Lama," said the statement on the website of the Buddhist group. The ISC and its websites would dissolve, the statement added, without giving any explanation. M is comforted by relatives before leaving to be resettled in Germany. Credit:LYNSEY ADDARIO More than three dozen Yazidi women who recently escaped the Islamic State and who agreed to be interviewed for this article described the numerous methods the fighters used to avoid pregnancy, including oral and injectable contraception, and sometimes both. In at least one case, a woman was forced to have an abortion in order to make her available for sex, and others were pressured to do so. M, a Yazidi teen who was sold seven times among the Islamic State fighters Credit:LYNSEY ADDARIO Some described how they knew they were about to be sold when they were driven to a hospital to give a urine sample to be tested for the hCG hormone, whose presence indicates pregnancy. They awaited their results with apprehension: A positive test would mean they were carrying their abuser's child; a negative result would allow Islamic State fighters to continue raping them. The rules have not been universally followed, with many women describing being assaulted by men who were either ignorant of the injunction or defiant of it. A camp for Yazidi refugees, some of whom were about to leave for resettlement in Germany. Credit:LYNSEY ADDARIO But overall, the methodical use of birth control during at least some of the women's captivity explains what doctors caring for recent escapees observed: Of the more than 700 rape victims from the Yazidi ethnic group who have sought treatment so far at a United Nations-backed clinic in northern Iraq, just 5 per cent became pregnant during their enslavement, according to Dr Nagham Nawzat, the gynaecologist carrying out the examinations. It is a stunningly low figure given that the normal fertility rate for a young woman is between 20 percent and 25 percent in any given month, four to five times the rate that has been recorded so far, said Dr Nezar Ismet Taib, who heads the Ministry of Health Directorate in Dohuk, which oversees the clinic where the victims are being treated. "We were expecting something much higher," he said. The captured teenage girl, who agreed to be identified by her first initial, M, has the demeanour of a child and wears her hair in a bouncy ponytail. She was sold a total of seven times. When prospective buyers came to inquire about her, she overheard them asking for assurances that she was not pregnant, and her owner provided the box of birth control as proof. That was not enough for the third man who bought her, she said. He quizzed her on the date of her last menstrual cycle and, unnerved by what he perceived as a delay, gave her a version of the so-called morning-after pill, causing her to start bleeding. Even then, he seemed unsatisfied. Finally he came into her room, closed the door and ordered her to lower her pants. The teenager feared she was about to be raped. Instead he pulled out a syringe and gave her a shot on her upper thigh. It was a 150-milligram dose of Depo-Provera, an injectable contraceptive, a box of which she showed to a reporter. "To make sure you don't get pregnant," she recalled him saying. When he had finished, he pushed her back onto the bed and raped her for the first time. Thousands of women and girls from the Yazidi minority remain captives of the Islamic State, after the jihadis overran their ancestral homeland on Mount Sinjar on August 3, 2014. In the months since then, hundreds have managed to escape, returning to a community now living in tents in the plains of the yellow massif, hours from their former homes. Many of the women interviewed for this article were initially reached through Yazidi community leaders, and gave their consent. All the underage rape victims who agreed to speak were interviewed alongside members of their family. Ensuring availability In its official publications, the Islamic State has stated that it is legal for a man to rape the women he enslaves under just about any circumstance. Even sex with a child is permissible, according to a pamphlet published by the group. The injunction against raping a pregnant slave is functionally the only protection for the captured women. The Islamic State cites centuries-old rulings stating that the owner of a female slave can have sex with her only after she has undergone istibra - "the process of ensuring that the womb is empty," according to Princeton University professor Bernard Haykel, one of several experts on Islamic law consulted on the topic. The purpose of this is to guarantee there is no confusion over a child's paternity. Most of the Sunni scholars who ruled on the issue argued that the requirement could be met by respecting a period of sexual abstinence whenever the captive changes hands, proposing a duration of at least one menstrual cycle, according to Brill's Encyclopaedia of Islam. In its own manual, the Islamic State outlines the abstinence method as one option. But it also quotes the minority opinion of a Tunisian cleric who in the 1100s argued that it was enough to fulfill merely the spirit of the law. That opens the way for other means, including modern medicine, to circumvent the waiting period. A total of 37 women abducted by the Islamic State who agreed to be interviewed over three trips to northern Iraq described an uneven system: Some fighters insisted on double and even triple forms of contraception, while others violated the guidelines entirely. Although it remains unclear why some hewed closely to the regulations while others flouted them, one emerging pattern was that women held by senior commanders were more likely to be given contraception, in contrast to those held by junior fighters, who perhaps were less versed on the rules. J, an 18-year-old, said she had been sold to the Islamic State's governor of Tal Afar, a city in northern Iraq. "Each month, he made me get a shot. It was his assistant who took me to the hospital," said J, who was interviewed alongside her mother, after escaping this year. "On top of that he also gave me birth control pills. He told me, 'We don't want you to get pregnant,'" she said. When she was sold to a more junior fighter in the Syrian city of Tal Barak, it was the man's mother who escorted her to the hospital. "She told me, 'If you are pregnant, we are going to send you back,'" J said. "They took me into the lab. There were machines that looked like centrifuges and other contraptions. They drew three vials of my blood. About 30 or 40 minutes later, they came back to say I wasn't pregnant." The fighter's mother triumphantly told her son that the 18-year-old was not pregnant, validating his right to rape her, which he did repeatedly. When that fighter tired of her, he gave her as a gift to his brother. Yet the brother did not take her back to have another blood test, forcing her to have sex without ascertaining whether she was carrying another man's child. Several other women reported a similar set of circumstances, including being given birth control by some of their owners but not by others. However, the low pregnancy rate, say medical professionals, is evidence that the rules intended to avoid pregnancy were more likely to have been applied than not. In his office in Dohuk's Ministry of Health Directorate, Taib, the physician tasked with overseeing the treatment of the hundreds of victims, was initially puzzled by the low pregnancy rate. In other conflicts where rape has been used as a weapon of war, it has led to waves of unwanted pregnancies - either because the attackers did not use birth control or, as was the case in the former Yugoslavia, because they purposefully tried to impregnate their victims. One medical study of 68 Croatian and Bosnian rape victims found that 29 had become pregnant. With more than 700 cases of rape recorded so far, Taib's centre has treated only 35 pregnancies. He expected to see at least 140. "Even higher than that, if you consider that these women had multiple partners and were raped every day over many months," Taib said. "I concluded that either they did an abortion before they came back or they used contraception," Taib said. "And if there were abortions, then there would have been physical signs," which would have been noted by the gynaecologist treating the returnees, he said. "There were no signs." A fragile protection The prohibition surrounding pregnancy is perhaps the only instance when the codes that the jihadis were applying lined up with the concerns of their victims, who dreaded carrying their rapists' children. Ahlam, a middle-age woman who was kidnapped with her six children, said she had been not raped because she had been deemed unattractive. Because she spoke Arabic, the Islamic State used her as an interpreter. One day, she was asked to chaperone a group of young Yazidi women to the hospital in Tal Afar, where each woman was given 150 milligrams of Depo-Provera. Over the months that followed, she said, she escorted in all around 30 victims to get the injection both in Tal Afar and later in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Twice she was asked to escort her own teenage daughter, who was raped by multiple fighters. She explained the conflicted feelings she had at the time. "ISIS took our girls as slaves, only for sex," Ahlam said, but the insistence on birth control brought some relief. "No one wants to carry the child of their enemy." Others described how the fighters so opposed pregnancy that some tried to force young women to abort. Abdal Ali said his sister, 20, was in her second trimester at the time of her capture in 2014. Still, one commander so urgently wanted her as his slave that he tried to end the pregnancy by giving her pills that would cause her to miscarry. "She hid them under her tongue, and then when they weren't looking, she spit them out," said Ali, who related the story on behalf of his sister because she is undergoing medical treatment abroad for the injuries she suffered. "They wanted to get rid of the child so that they could use the woman." A 20-year-old who asked to be identified only as H began to feel nauseated soon after her abduction. "The smell of rice made me gag," she said. Already pregnant at the time of her capture, she considered herself one of the fortunate ones. For almost two months, H was moved from location to location and held in locked rooms, but she was spared the abuse that was by then befalling most of the young women held alongside her. Despite being repeatedly forced to give a urine sample and always testing positive, she, too, was eventually picked. Her owner took her to a house, shared by another couple. When the couple was present, he did not approach her, suggesting he knew it was illegal. Only when the couple left did he forcibly have sex with her, and when he did he appeared drugged. "I was telling him: 'I'm pregnant. In your book it says that you can't do this.' He had bloodshot eyes. He acted like he was high," she said. Eventually he drove her to a hospital with the aim of making her have an abortion, and flew into a rage when she refused the surgery, repeatedly punching her in the stomach. Even so, his behaviour suggested he was ashamed: He never told the doctors that he wanted H to abort, instead imploring her to ask for the procedure herself. When he drove her home, she waited until he left and then threw herself over the property's wall. "My knees were bleeding. I was dizzy. I almost couldn't walk," she said. A revealing series of interviews with US President Barack Obama has given insight into a private discussion he had with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The 20,000-word feature published in The Atlantic magazine also relies on interviews with Mr Obama's former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her successor John Kerry, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, other world leaders and key White House insiders. U.S. President Barack Obama, right, talks with Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during their meeting in Manila, November, 2015 Credit:Susan Walsh It details part of a meeting between Mr Obama and Mr Turnbull during November's APEC summit in Manila. The president, according to The Atlantic, described to Mr Turnbull how he had watched Indonesia gradually move from a relaxed, multi-faceted Islam to a more fundamentalist, unforgiving interpretation with large numbers of Indonesian women adopting the hijab Muslim head covering. "They had style, they had grace, and they had class," Brian Mulroney, who was the prime minister of Canada and a close ally during Ronald Reagan's second term as president, said in his eulogy. Eulogists paid tribute to the former first lady whose fierce, unwavering devotion was essential to Ronald Reagan's success. But mourners were also saying goodbye to an era in the 1980s that has been romanticised by time - and the current meltdown of order and civility in Republican politics. Simi Valley, California: Nancy Reagan was memorialised at her funeral at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Friday, closing a chapter of history revered by conservatives as the Republican Camelot. James Baker III, a former chief of staff, Treasury secretary and secretary of state, spoke, and George Shultz, another former secretary of state, was also there. Robert McFarlane, President Reagan's national security adviser, and Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal columnist and Reagan speechwriter, attended, members of a dwindling inner circle of Reagan administration alumni. The casket carrying former first lady Nancy Reagan at her funeral service on Friday. Credit:AP "Democrats had the grave and glamorous era of JFK, a sparkling time and an irrecoverable one," Noonan said in an interview. "And now perhaps Republicans look back and feel they too had a Camelot." The marriage to the former Nancy Davis was not Reagan's first, but it was so loving that Republicans still idealise it, particularly in the way the Reagans glazed traditional roles with Hollywood glamour and a patina of newly minted wealth. Although the Reagans may have come to Washington as envoys from nouveau riche California, by the end they were pillars of propriety and dignity. To their supporters, they were reverse Kennedys: unapologetically old-fashioned and doting toward each other. They were also a couple with rebellious children who did not always pay fealty to Reagan family values - their daughter, Patti Davis, 63, was often estranged from her mother and wrote an unflattering autobiography, The Way I See It. Washington: The last-minute cancellation of a major Chicago rally by Donald Trump on safety grounds has pivoted the attention from Republican party infighting to the increasingly violent tone at his rallies and the extent to which Trump encourages it. Scuffles and fights broke out between pro- and anti-Trump protesters as thousands waited in a stadium at the University of Illinois at Chicago for the candidate, who was a no-show. Instead columns of police filed into the stadium, attempting to separate the factions as announcements were made that Trump had cancelled. Amidst chaos, it became clear that unlike the usual mix of a dozen or so protesters among Trump's thousands of rally attendees, as much as half of the crowd crammed into the UIC stadium were there to protest against Trump. Trump blamed on Saturday organized "thugs" for the protests that shut down his Chicago rally and said the incident had "energized America." In Thursday's Republican candidates' debate in Miami, Trump offered a similar logic: "We have some protesters who are bad dudes they have done bad things. They are swinging; they are really dangerous and they get in there and they start hitting people. Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has endorsed Donald Trump. Credit:AP "People come with tremendous passion and love for the country [and] when they see what's going on in this country, they have anger that is unbelievable ... it's a beautiful thing in many respects. But I certainly do not condone that at all." Trump has been heard at rallies urging his followers not to hurt protesters, telling them in one instance: "If a protester starts demonstrating in the area around you, please do not touch or harm the protester." A supporter of Republican presidential candidate in Chicago on Friday. Credit:AP Confused? The neurosurgeon Ben Carson, whose briefly stellar campaign for the Republican nomination collapsed last week, attempted to clarify any confusion on Trump the Puncher and Trump the Pacifist when he gave Trump his endorsement on Friday. Senator Marco Rubio greets supporters in Naples, in his home state of Florida, on Friday. Credit:AP Carson, who Trump had dismissed earlier, as "pathological", told Fox News Radio: "There's two Donald Trumps. There's the Donald Trump that you see on television and who gets out in front of big audiences and there's the Donald Trump behind the scenes. They're not the same person one's very much an entertainer, and one is actually a thinking individual." So that explains it. And it explains too the man who appeared on stage in Thursday's debate, claiming to be Trump. This was the candidate as few Americans have seen him no abuse, no condescension, no nicknaming. Ted Cruz at a campaign stop in Orlando, Florida, on Friday. Credit:AP The result was en exquisite political moment. In the absence of the children-in-a-sandpit antics that have passed for debate in previous encounters, the remaining four candidates thrashed around on policy issues, instead of each other. A Cruz supporter poses for a photo in Orlando on Friday. Credit:AP In the midst of such calmness, Trump ventured more deeply into policy thickets than is his wont and because the candidates themselves had imposed this calmness, the others rarely piled on as Trump's shortcomings were revealed. Trump raised eyebrows by describing the 1989 pro-democracy uprising in Tiananmen Square as a "riot". He did an about-turn on Islamic State, saddling up to send as many as 30,000 US troops to do battle. In briefly veering towards ridicule, Texas senator Ted Cruz crystallised Trump's foreign policy as "China bad, Muslims bad" to which many of Trump's supporters probably would have responded: "and your point is?" Such attacks on Trump's demonstrated lack of detail on policy have failed to slow his stride and on Thursday he stuck to his default response as each policy crisis was thrown at him, it became a generic problem, to be resolved by the "best deal" for the US, and Donald Trump was best equipped to get the best deal. The pundit consensus on the night was that Trump needed to remain the front runner and he did; that Florida senator Marco Rubio needed to remain standing and he did, but probably too late; that Cruz needed to get one over both Trump and Rubio and, really, he didn't; and that Ohio Governor John Kasich needed to do something special and in all seriousness, he didn't. The debate at the University of Miami was the last headline event before a critical series of primaries on Tuesday Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina. If Trump can defeat Rubio in his home state, and numerous polls say he will, Rubio's campaign is probably finished. If Trump can defeat Kasich in his home state, and numerous polls say that he just might, Kasich's campaign is probably finished. Regardless of whether Rubio or Kasich escape the ritual humiliation of rejection by the voters of their respective home states, there is an expectation that the field will shrink to a two-man contest Trump v Cruz. Rubio and Kasich want the nomination process to go all the way to the GOP convention, to be held in Cleveland in July. Cruz is trumpeting that he is within 100 delegates of Trump, so the other two should get out of his way. But if Trump wins only Florida on Tuesday, he would be about 200 delegates ahead of Cruz and another 268 delegates are up for grabs in the other states, in all of which Trump is in front in polling ranging from a narrow 2.5 points in Ohio to 12 points in Illinois, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls. Banking on a belief that if he wins in Ohio he can stay in the race, Kasich's response to a suggestion that whichever candidate won the most convention delegates ought to be anointed as the nominee, was toby refer toretreating behind a requirement that a candidate must capture 1237 delegates to win the nomination. He told the debate audience: "Math doesn't tell the whole story in politics in school, if you got an 86 you got a B; just because everyone else got an 84, doesn't mean you got an A." Rubio is urging his supporters in Ohio to vote for Kasich on Tuesday, hoping to thwart Trump by keeping Kasich in the race. And both Trump and Cruz insistare demanding that the 1237 delegate requirement is arbitrary and should be ignored each being supremely confident that they can win a two-horse race. Acknowledging that for the party establishment both he and Trump are the two least-popular candidates, Cruz said in the debate: "There are some in Washington who have fevered dreams of a brokered convention they're unhappy with how the people are voting and they want to parachute in their favourite Washington candidate to be the nominee. "I think that would be an absolute disaster. We need to respect the will of the people." Analysts say that Trump is the only candidate who can reach the 1237-delegate target "but it's a tightrope walk that leaves the businessman with little margin for error", says Politico.com says. By Politico.com's calculation, Cruz would need to win about 70 per cent of the remaining delegates by contrast Trump needs to win just 54 per cent. Assuming that none of the candidates reaches the mandated delegate count required to clinch the nomination, the margin by which they fall short will be critical in any backroom calculus to use a convention vote to bar either Trump or Cruz from the nomination. In the first vote at a brokered convention, delegates are required to vote according to the outcome of the primary in their state but about 5five per cent are not bound to candidates and the convention will have one vote after another till a candidate wins a majority. If a second vote is necessary, delegates from about 30 states, more than half of the convention, become free to vote as they wish. In any third vote, as many as 80 per cent of the delegates are allowed to vote as they please. A further rule requirement is that when a candidate is confirmed to have won a majority, another rule comes into play it then must be confirmed that the winning tally includes more than half of the delegates from at least eight states. Latest News NAB reveals six market megatrends for brokers More opportunities for investors, first home buyers Firstmac shifts up a gear on auto loans National sales manager appointed to pursue growing market Making broker news this week, a leading brokerage is to list on the ASX; the MFAA discusses the next evolution of mortgage broking; an aggregator re-launches a successful lead generation business.Sydney-based mortgage group N1 Loans is to list on the ASX this month after the group closed their IPO for $5 million. Ren Wong , CEO of N1 Loans, said that the IPO will help the business deliver strong growth in the future.We are humbled by the support in our company and we look forward to delivering strong growth and a business with strong integrity, serving not only the Asian speaking community, but all Australian customers seeking a competitive mortgage rate, Wong said.The MFAA noted this week that the biggest evolution in the mortgage and finance broking industry will be driven by data scraping technology Speaking at Yellow Brick Roads inaugural Women in Finance event held in Sydney, MFAA CEO Siobhan Hayden said that the technology will help brokers with efficiency but will mean brokers need to adapt their offerings.It means we need to look beyond just being a monoline offering. If you are one broker selling one product you will need to have at least four or five brokers in a room with file managers to make your business efficient and scalable, Hayden told the room of 70 brokers.Finally, eChoice announced the re-launch of their previously successful Lawfund lead generation business due to favourable industry conditions.Slated for re-launch this month, Lawfund was originally established more than twenty years ago to help member solicitors and accountants arrange finance for their clients.Peter Andronicos, eChoice chief executive, said that the move to re-launch is a positive one for the industry and will help the business reach new networks.We are looking forward to expanding our industry reach to a receptive network of finance and legal professionals who respect what the Lawfund name brings to their business, while brokers will benefit from our customised approach to a comprehensive borrower proposition. This is positive news for the industry and our brokers. BLACK REPUBLICAN BLOG - The Republican Party is the party of civil rights and the four Fs: faith, family, freedom and fairness. The Democratic Party is the party of the four Ss: slavery, secession, segregation and socialism (Quote By Author Michael Scheuer). latest news October 3, 2022 Dee Gambit Hundreds if not thousands of new and returning TV shows and movies are released every month your options of what to watch are endless. Variety, they say is ... Bordentown exhibit showcases items belonging to Napoleon's brother The Bordentown Historical society is gaining international attention for its Joseph Bonaparte exhibit, former King of Spain and brother of Napoleon. This article first appeared on Business Standard on 12 March, 2016. Ajay Singh paid Rs 2 to Kalanithi Maran to acquire the latter's controlling stake in SpiceJet. This was disclosed by Maran in his Delhi High court petition against SpiceJet and its current promoter Singh over a share transfer dispute. Singh took control of the airline last January acquiring 58.46 per cent shares of the airline from Maran and his associate company Kal Airways. The acquisition price was not revealed to the stock exchange. At the time of the transaction the SpiceJet stock was priced at Rs 16.30 a share. It closed at Rs 61.75 on Friday. It was speculated Singh acquired control of the airline at a throwaway price because it was in was on verge of closure after defaulting on dues to lessors, airports and oil companies. Singh, who is also its founder-promoter, has steered SpiceJet back into profit, improved its market share and delivered 90 per cent plus loads. But a dispute between the former and current owners of the airline has come to the fore and is being heard in the Delhi High Court. In his petition Maran has claimed SpiceJet and Singh violated the share purchase agreement over issue of cumulative redeemable preference shares and failed to pay statutory income tax and service tax dues. Maran claims he had deposited Rs 680 crore with the airline towards issue of share warrants and payment of dues but had to face summons from the income tax department as the company failed to take necessary action. On Friday the Delhi High Court today asked Spicejet to pass a board resolution for issuing share warrants to Maran and Kal Airways according to the sale agreement of 2015 which led to change in ownership of the carrier. Justice Manmohan Singh asked both sides to come with the draft terms they are agreeable to and then he would pass orders on the petition moved by Maran seeking a stay on transfer of any shares of the airline. The matter has been listed for orders on March 14. According to a PTI report SpiceJet has refuted allegations and claimed that the warrants can be issued only after approval is received from Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). It also said there was no fear of transferring shares to a third party or to Maran as the shares have not yet been issued by the company. A SpiceJet spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email query sent by this paper. However in a media statement released on Friday it said a proceeding has been filed by Kalanithi Maran and Kal Airways before the Delhi High Court seeking various interim reliefs. No relief has been granted by the court and the matter is posted for further hearing. The drug regulator in the country has withdrawn an alert it issued on usage of bevacizumab injection, a cancer drug, in the treatment of eye disease. The medicine, which is known under the brand name Avastin and sold by Swiss pharma major Roche, has been used by eye doctors to treat ophthalmic conditions such as age-related macular degeneration (ARMD). The decision comes after an expert committee recommended the Office of Drug Controller General (India), [DCGI] to withdraw the alert notice. The committee observed that the safety and efficacy of the medicine in its use intravitreal (inside the eye) has been proven in over 2,500 independent studies published globally and that it is 40 times cheaper than the other available drug for the same use. "The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has accepted recommendations of the Committee," said G N Singh, DCGI in a notice issued. The DCGI, on January 21, this year, has issued an alert notice as a precautionary measure in the light of the incidences of blindness reported in Gujarat following the use of medicine allegedly for Ophthalmic conditions. According to reports, the injections has damaged the vision of 15 patients in Gujarat, following which the State drug control office put its sales on hold. The expert committee was formed to look into the issue and it has submitted its report on February 8, 2016. "The Bevacizumab Injection is 40 times cheaper than other available drug (Renibizumab Injection) for same use and equally effective in India. This would put less financial burden on patients and prevent blindness of many," says the directive from DCGI quoting the committee. Renibizumab Injection is sold by Novartis in various countries under the brand name Lucentis and Accentrix. Off-label use is the use of a medicine for an therapeutic indication for which the originator company has not sought approval from the regulatory authorities, but has been proven by repeated use by the practitioners, said experts. The committee proposed that All India Ophthalmological Society (AIOS) and Vitreo Retinal Society of India (VRSI) will formulate guidelines for safe and effective use of the medicine for ophthalmic purpose based on the written-informed consent as practiced globally for off-label use under appropriate environmental conditions by skilled ophthalmic surgeons based on risk-benefit analysis. These organisations would also further ensure that appropriate training and awareness may be imparted to its members. The AIOS, in tune with the recommendation, has already formulated guidelines and communicated it with its members along with details of the consent format, said D Ramamurthy, president of AIOS. According to him, a vial of bevacizumab injection is priced at Rs 25,000-27,000, which could be used in around 15 patients. "Lucentis was priced at around Rs 45,000 a vial earlier, but in the last one month, the price was dropped on par with Accentrix, to around Rs 15,000-17,000 a vial," he said. These vials contain quantity only for a single injection, he added. The medicine is used for various treatment, including diabetic retinopathy, age related macular degeneration (ARMD) and others, mainly for the aged population, for preventing blindness. It may also have to be used almost on a monthly basis on some of the patients. According to a rough calculation by the AIOS, around 4,000 injections of Avastin are being performed across the country a day on an average. The committee, which deliberated on the use of the injection in ophthalmic conditions as an off-label indication, commented that while it is not approved by global regulator authorities to be delivered into the eye since the innovator company has not applied for it, it has been recommended for use in eye by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last year. It observed that the WHO in April, 2015, has recommended the medicine by including it in the list of essential medicines prepared as anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) in ophthalmic section based on the recommendation of International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO). Regulatory agencies of France and Italy have allowed the off-label use of the medicine as a Temporary Recommended Use (TRU). The safety and efficacy of the medicine intravitreal use is stated to be proven by various independent studies (over 2,500 studies published) conducted globally. It was discussed that rate of endophthalmitis is significantly lower after the injection of bevacizumab injection as compared to standard cataract surgery, it added. Karnataka has accused Uber of not complying with its ban on bike taxis and has seized over 80 two wheelers operating on Ubers platform in Bengaluru since its launch on March 4. Bengaluru became the first city where both Uber and Ola introduced two-wheeler taxi services, aimed at helping commuters take short trips in the congested cities. Within a day of launch, the government issued a statement saying that bike taxi services operating in the state were illegal and should be withdrawn. While Ola and other operators such as Ridingo and Hey Bob have put a hold on the service, the government has accused Uber of non-compliance. The state has now issued yet another warning stating that if the aggregators continue to operate bike taxis, they will be seized and legal action will be initiated. These bike taxis are operating on white board. Weve asked these aggregators to approach the Road Transport Authority (RTA) and procure the right permissions to operate. So far we have seized close to 80 vehicles, all of which are from Uber, Karnataka transport commissioner Ramegowda said. Indias Motor Vehicle Act doesnt have a provision for two wheelers to be used as taxis. The government has said that it could look at allowing two wheelers as taxis on a case-by-case basis but insisted that such service providers apply for permits. In addition, it said insurance firms will not consider claims made for such bikes if they are involved in accidents. Both Uber and Ola did not respond to email queries seeking clarification on the issue. Experts argue that by banning bike taxis, the Karnataka government is missing an opportunity to create employment, reduce congestion on roads, and offer commuters a truly affordable means of getting about. Moreover, while there is the issue of lack of permits, they should work towards a speedy change in the law, they said. Instead of helping these people (aggregators) operate by making it easy for them to get the permissions and help this sector to boom, the government is doing exactly the opposite. Allowing bike taxis will create employment as not only guys that buy cars can take part in this movement, said Debabrat Mishra, director of Hay Group. In the past, Karnataka has also taken issue with Ubers carpooling service that allows drivers to charge passengers a fee on private cars. Bike taxis are popular in Southeast Asian countries which have similar traffic congestion issues. The market however is highly fragmented, somewhat like Indias three-wheeler autorickshaws. In an attempt to streamline a similar service, Uber launched its bike taxi service in Bangkok a week before bringing it to Bengaluru. The service is seen as being cost-effective, since most bikes in India are highly fuel efficient, and can navigate dense traffic much faster than four wheelers or autorickshaws. Moreover, uberMOTO was the cheapest offering on Ubers platform, with a base fare of Rs 15 and a tariff of Rs 3 per kilometre in addition to Rs 1 per minute for the ride. Online education start-up UpGrad, co-founded by entrepreneur and private investor Ronnie Screwvala, has tied up with online deal-making platform LetsVenture to jointly design a four- to six-week online angel investment programme that aims to reach over 2,500 individuals over the next two years. The programme, which is slated to commence in July 2016 in India, will also be launched in select international markets to give international investors access to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India and in the respective country. It will comprise a mixture of interactive content and lectures from the world's leading angel investors as well as high-end offline meet-ups for networking opportunities giving individuals looking to become investors an unmatched access to the startup ecosystem of the country. "Our programme is designed to satisfy the increasing demands of individuals to be educated in the area of angel investing, driven by the strong growth in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India and great developments in the funding landscape. LetsVenture has had huge impact on the positive development in the country and we are extremely excited to partner up with them to educate the next set of investors," UpGrad co-founder Ronnie Screwvala said in a statement. "Ever since we started LetsVenture, we have seen a significant demand of new angel investors to get trained and educated in some of the key areas of angel investing. We have done smaller training workshops throughout the years, but we want to make this available to the many more individuals who want to step into this exciting field of investments. We want to make angel investing more accessible to investors living outside of Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. That's why we have partnered with UpGrad to create a first-class program for the next generation of angel investors," said Shanti Mohan, co-founder and CEO of LetsVenture. The story of the world's fourth largest mobile handset company by sales, China's Xiaomi, is impressive. The company entered India in July 2014 and multiplied its sales in 2015. Manu Kumar Jain, general manager and head of India operations, Xiaomi Corp, reveals his plans to Arnab Dutta over an extended telephonic conversation. Edited excerpts How was 2015 for Xiaomi in India? The year was our first full year in India, and we sold some 1.5 million devices in the December quarter, after crossing 1 million units in July-September. We have offline distribution through Airtel, Mobile Store and Redington and online sales through Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon and mi.com. We also started local manufacturing in partnership with Foxconn in July. We are already one of the top three smartphone brands in the online channel and have established our business for the long term in India. Where does India figure in your priority list of markets? India is the second most important market for us. With 240 million mobile Internet users, India is vital for our growth. Our focus is to bring in new handsets here as soon as possible. We plan to introduce the Mi5 here by April, weeks after its China launch. Local manufacturing helps us reduce the time between order and delivery. We will come up with more India-specific features in 2016. Is Xiaomi changing focus to offline sales? No, our focus was and remains on online distribution. Of course, we want to increase our offline penetration. If sales through brick-and-mortar outlets climb to 30 per cent of the total in the next two years it will be a great achievement. To keep a tab on costs, we opted for a 'direct to retailer' model for offline sales, where only one intermediary (Redington) contacts retailers directly on a weekly basis. What do you plan to do new in 2016? Apart from introducing a more models this year, we will be strengthening mi.com. It will become an online marketplace where other sellers will be trading. We are also increasing our warehousing capacity, including a 50,000 sq ft warehouse in Bengaluru. We will launch a number of devices that can be connected with smartphones. Of the five categories we deal in, we will introduce a few in India. Scaling up the service network is also under way. It's been nearly 12 years since 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in an 'encounter' by the Gujarat Police on 15 June 2004. Nearly every aspect of that encounter, including whether Jahan was indeed a terror operative on her way, along with her associates, to assassinate the then Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi, or if at all that encounter was genuine, has been in dispute ever since. But if her "extra-judicial" killing by the Gujarat Police - current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah was then the junior home minister in the government that Modi headed - made BJP's ideological opponents push the party's current leadership into a corner, it's now the BJP government at the Centre that finds itself with an opportunity to brand all who had questioned the actions of the state police as anti-nationals. For BJP and the government, the controversy got a new life on February 11 when David Coleman Headley, who had conspired with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) to carry out the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai in 2008, told a Mumbai court via teleconferencing that Ishrat was indeed a terror operative. There were reports in 2013 as well that Headley in his deposition had identified Ishrat as an LeT operative, but the National Investigation Agency had denied it. The revelation couldn't have come at a better time for BJP and the government, which was then in the midst of fighting a losing political battle after the suicide of Dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemula. It had received flak for the intervention of two of its ministers in student politics, which ostensibly drove Vemula to end his life. The Ishrat case, at least since 2013, was known more for how the Gujarat Police carried out a fake encounter than her alleged links with LeT. That year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had vindicated an investigation by a court ordered Special Investigation Team that the encounter was staged. The CBI had filed a charge sheet against seven Gujarat Police officers as well as some Intelligence Bureau officials for their role in the killing. Headley's disclosure helped shift the debate from the question of extra-judicial killing of Ishrat and others to the certainty that they were indeed terror operatives and were meted out justice before they could have mounted a terror attack. Senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad lost little time to highlight how the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government filed two contradictory affidavits related to the case within a space of two months in the Gujarat High Court in 2009. The affidavits were in response to the petition filed by Ishrat's mother. Hidden truths What is less known is that the additional judicial magistrate hearing the case had already cast doubts on the genuineness of the encounter, forcing the Union ministry of home affairs to file a second affidavit. Unlike the first affidavit which had sought to prove that there indeed were intelligence inputs about Ishrat's terror links, the second affidavit stated how there was no conclusive proof. In February this year, GK Pillai, the home secretary at the time of filing of the two affidavits, claimed that P Chidambaram as home minister then had altered the second affidavit "bypassing" bureaucrats, and that the minister totally rewrote the affidavit. BJP demanded a judicial inquiry into the case and into Chidambaram's role. The party alleged that Chidambaram was attempting to frame Modi and Shah just before the Gujarat elections and on the orders of the Congress leadership. Chidambaram has claimed the second affidavit was "absolutely correct" and that Pillai was a party to it. In his defence, Pillai, currently a non-executive director with Adani Ports, has claimed that he didn't put a dissent note on the file then as Chidambaram was his political boss. Pillai retired in 2011, observed the two year cooling off period and joined Adani Ports, a company founded by Gautam Adani, who has earlier been targeted by the Congress for his proximity to Prime Minister Modi. Within days of Pillai's claims there surfaced an interview he had given in 2013, two years after he had retired. Pillai had then said how he didn't think there was any conclusive evidence against her (Ishrat). "Unless there is any proper investigation carried out, we will have to give her the benefit of the doubt." Soon other police officials and bureaucrats came forward with newer revelations, including RVS Mani, the under-secretary who had submitted the affidavits. Mani alleged that he was tortured by a court appointed Special Investigation Team to probe the Ishrat case. Satish Verma, an Indian Police Service officer, rebutted Mani's claims. Currently the chief vigilance officer with a public sector unit and posted in Shillong, Verma said the SIT probe was extremely detailed, spoke to several witnesses and recorded confessions before magistrates to establish that the encounter was premeditated. Setting the stage Verma said as part of the IB operation, two LeT men from Pakistan were lured to India, possibly with the help of Javed Shaikh. The SIT found that the intelligence input was about three men, and had no mention of a woman. Verma said that the probe found that one of the men was detained 40 days before the killing and the second 15 days later, while Javed and Ishrat were caught travelling from Mumbai to Gujarat two days before the killing. All, says Verma, were kept in illegal custody, taken to a predetermined spot, weapons were planted on them and then they were shot dead. He has said that the first affidavit cited a Pakistani website having carried her name as evidence of her terror links. On Thursday, the Lok Sabha took up a calling attention motion to discuss the "alleged alteration of affidavits relating to the Ishrat Jahan case". Home Minister Rajnath Singh claimed that letters sent by Pillai to the then Attorney General in relation to the second affidavit were missing, and the corrected draft of the second affidavit was unavailable. He slammed the "flip-flop" on the issue by the UPA government and its "attempt" to defame the then Gujarat CM. The home minister said his ministry was conducting an internal inquiry of the entire issue. BJP's Satyapal Singh, one of the three IPS officers to have headed the SIT, told the House how the UPA government manipulated the names of those who were part of the probe team, and prodded them to come up with a report that proved that the encounter was fake. He also questioned the SIT's final report, pointing out how much of the evidence that proved Ishrat's terror links was ignored. It was left to Biju Janata Dal's Kalikesh Bahadur Singh to point out how both the Congress and BJP have played "vote bank politics" on Ishrat's killing, and how both governments - the Congress-led UPA at the Centre and the BJP's in Gujarat - rewarded or punished officials based on what suited their respective agendas. The MP said the case being heard in the Gujarat High Court isn't whether Ishrat was a terrorist or not but about its extra-judicial nature. Amid the different versions of truth on the Ishrat case, what is certain is that Ishrat's mother Shamima Kausar, who has continued to maintain that Headley's confession was nothing but an attempt by powerful people to save themselves in the case, is unlikely to find a closure anytime soon. Sushma Swaraj on Saturday held a meeting with Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu Salinas during which they did a comprehensive review of the between the two countries and explored the possibility of elevating the relationship to a new level. "During their meeting, the external affairs minister and the Mexican foreign minister undertook a comprehensive review of the entire gamut of bilateral relations including political, commercial and trade, financial, technical and other areas to further broaden and strengthen cooperation," the external affairs ministry said in a statement. It added that the ministers agreed to exchange high level visits in the near future and also discussed important regional and international issues of mutual interest. "The two ministers discussed ways and means of elevating the special relationship between India and Mexico," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup stated, adding that both sides agreed to hold the next meeting of the joint commission in Mexico in the second half of this year. Swarup said that Sushma Swaraj acknowledged that the present bilateral trade volume of $6.5 billion was low and sought Mexico's participation in flaghip programmes like Make in India, Skill India and Smart Cities. "The two ministers also discussed cooperation in a number of areas, including oil and gas, renewable energy, urban planning and the housing sector," he said. India is the third largest importer of crude oil from Mexico. The Latin American country ranks among the top 10 oil-producing nations and has the world's fourth largest shale oil reserves. "The external affairs minister also mentioned that we would like Mexico's participation in ensuring value addition and greater use of technology in our agriculture and agro-processing sectors," Swarup stated. "She also conveyed our interest in providing launch facilities for Mexican micro and nano satellites." The spokesman said that both sides shared their respective perspectives in engaging with the diaspora. On Friday, delivering a lecture organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) here, Salinas, while stating that India has the largest diaspora and Mexico the second largest, said that her country could learn a lot from India in dealing with the diaspora. "India has a long tradition of recognising the value of its diaspora abroad for public diplomacy," she said. In Saturday's meeting, Sushma Swaraj and Salinas also exchanged views on cooperation in issues relating to women's empowerment. According to Swarup, the Mexican foreign minister also renewed the invitation extended by her country's President Enrique Pena Nieto to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Mexico in the near future. On Friday, soon after her arrival here on a two-day visit, Salinas called on Modi. She also interacted with the private sector at a business event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Earlier on Saturday, Salinas undertook a short ride in the Delhi Metro and inaugurated a photographic exhibition called 'Mexico Is' at the Rajiv Chowk metro station. Former CFO of Kingfisher Airlines, A Raghunathan, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mumbai for the second day Saturday for questioning in connection with the money laundering probe in the alleged default of over Rs 900 crore loan from IDBI bank. "Yesterday, Raghunathan was questioned for around eight hours. He is being interrogated for the second day today," a senior ED official said. The former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of KFA appeared before the ED office here around 11 am. The ED had issued summons to over half a dozen officials of the IDBI bank and Vijay Mallya-owned long-grounded KFA under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) wherein all the individuals have been asked to submit details about their personal finances and Income Tax Returns (ITRs) of last five years to the investigators. Apart from Raghunathan, summons have also been issued to former Chairman and Managing Director of the bank, Yogesh Agarwal and other senior executive members and officials of both the organisations. Officials had earlier indicated that the agency would question some important functionaries of the bank and the airlines before they decide on issuing summons to the main player and liquor baron Mallya in the case. The ED had recently registered a money laundering case against Mallya and others based on a CBI FIR registered last year. The agency is also investigating the overall financial structure of Kingfisher Airlines and if any possible kick backs were made. The ED has pressed charges under various sections of the PMLA against Mallya and others named in the CBI complaint. The CBI had booked Mallya, director of Kingfisher Airlines, the company, Raghunathan and unknown officials of IDBI Bank in its FIR alleging that the loan was sanctioned in violation of norms regarding credit limits. The ED is looking into the "proceeds of crime" that would have been generated using the slush funds of the alleged loan fraud and it is also probing if some of this amount was sent abroad illegally, they said. The Attorney General has informed the Supreme Court that Mallya has left the country on March 2. Amid the controversy surrounding liquor baron Vijay Mallya, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday put the onus on Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) could not have let the bureaucrat leave the country without the former's approval as they directly report to him. "Since CBI directly reports to PM, PM owes an answer why Mallya was allowed to leave India. CBI couldn't have allowed without approval from top," Kejriwal tweeted. Earlier, the CBI admitted that the first lookout notice for Mallya's detention at the country's exit points was issued in error. "The detention order issued against Vijay Mallya by CBI was an error by a lower level officer," the CBI said. The investigation agency also informed that Mallya had joined questioning on December 9, 2015 and 10 in New Delhi and on December 12 in Mumbai. The agency was accused of changing the nature of lookout notice against Mallya within one month of issuance from seeking his detention while leaving the country to that merely providing information about his travel plans. Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Mallya to appear before the agency next Friday (March 18) for questioning in the ongoing probe into a money-laundering case. Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Friday accused NDA Government of helping Mallya escape India. The Supreme Court had on Wednesday brushed aside a plea by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to direct Mallya to appear personally before the court to force him to come back to India. The case will be next heard on March 30. Earlier on Saturday, employees of Mallya's now defunct Kingfisher Airlines wrote a letter to Prime Minister Modi in a 'humanitarian' appeal, seeking his intervention in safeguarding the interest of the employees. Highlighting their humanitarian plight as they have not been paid their dues including salaries and statutory dues like the Provident Fund and Gratuity, the employees state in the letter that they are also being hounded by Income Tax notices although the tax default is from the side of the Airlines. The Madhya Pradesh government has tied up with the World Bank for a Rs 2,000 crore loan to develop education infrastructure. Around 3.6 million students, 10,800 academic staff and 1,400 administrators and officers in nearly 200 government colleges and universities are expected to benefit. "We will invest the soft loan in overhauling existing infrastructure. The state government will chip in with Rs 660 crore," Umashankar Gupta, Madhya Pradesh's higher education minister, said. "We will focus on better labs, equipment and necessary support," he added. A World Bank statement last week said it had signed a $300 million credit agreement with the Government of India and the Government of Madhya Pradesh for the Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Quality Improvement Project. Gupta said the government would also create an eco-system so that more students could become employable. "Over 77 per cent of employers in Madhya Pradesh said weak technical skills were the most important reason for rejecting a job applicant," the World Bank statement said. The project envisages centres of excellence in select colleges and university departments so that best learning practices and research is ensured. It would provide scholarships, upgrade faculty skills and extend technical assistance for institutions to gain accreditation with the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), the World Bank statement added. "By focusing on quality education, extending scholarships to disadvantaged students, and improving resources available for teaching, we hope the project will help produce a labour force that has the required skills and knowledge to boost the state's economy," Onno Ruhl, the World Bank's country director in India, said in the statement. According to the World Bank, enrollment in higher education in India has more than doubled from 8.4 million students in 2001 to 17 million students in 2011. Of these, nearly 10 per cent, or 1.6 million students, are enrolled in universities or colleges in Madhya Pradesh. The state's gross enrollment ratio of 19.5 in higher education is close to the national average of 21.1 per cent but there are major concerns over quality, points out a 2012 World Bank report, Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Reforms: Policy Options. It has identified access, equity and low quality as core challenges for the state. External Affairs Minister on Saturday discussed the implementation of the UN's sustainable development goals (SDGs) among other issues with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark. "The external affairs minister said that India had already started working on seven out of the 17 goals with concrete policies and programmes," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said. told Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand, that particular emphasis has been given to the issues of sanitation and gender equality. She also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his reply to the president's address to the joint session of parliament, had also called for a special day in each of the parliament sessions devoted to discussions on SDGs. "Helen Clark lauded India's important role on the board of the UNDP and said India was the second biggest contributor to the UNDP among the G-77 countries," Swarup said. "The external affairs minister also alluded to the close cooperation with the UNDP for the administration of the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) fund which had assisted several developmental projects around the world," he said. Saturday's discussions also touched on climate change and the Conference of Parties (CoP) 21 climate summit in Paris last year and the progress required by countries moving from Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). also briefed Clark on the International Solar Alliance, an initiative of Prime Minister Modi, and its secretariat that has been set up in India. "The UNDP administrator mentioned natural disasters as posing the biggest threat to SDGs," Swarup said. "In this context, she lauded India's disaster risk reduction capabilities which India had also offered to other developing countries," he added. The Maharashtra government has finalised regulations to allow it to wrest from tribals the control of the forest trade in goods such as bamboo and tendu leaves, worth thousands of crore annually. This means the government will also manage potentially 80 per cent of community forestlands in the state. The regulations came after the Union tribal affairs ministrys volte-face on interpreting the Forest Rights Act (FRA). The FRA gives tribal and other forest-dwellers gram sabhas (village councils) the sole statutory authority to manage, protect and utilise traditional community forestlands. But, the Maharashtra government prepared alternative state-level regulations that would help the forest department retain complete management control over such community forests in villages. The tribal affairs ministry, after repeatedly informing the state and other central government departments that the regulations were illegal and unconstitutional, unless approved by the President of India, eventually relented and gave the nod with some caveats. The Maharashtra government has taken the cue and gone a step further. State government documents reviewed by Business Standard show it has decided these regulations, empowering the forest department to retain control will be applicable in all but three situations. The rules, Indian Forests (Maharashtra) (Regulation of assignment, management, and cancellation of village forests) Rules 2014, will not be applicable in Schedule V areas, where rights of tribals have already been settled under the Act and in places where claims of tribals are pending. The state has 16,600 villages with forest land in their territories. Under the Act, the government can claim for community ownership in each of these villages. But, according to tribal affairs ministrys latest records, by December 2015, only 7,152 villages had formally put forth claims for community forestlands under the Act. Of these, 3,957 claims were accepted and 1,843 rejected. In other words, the Maharashtra government will be able to re-impose the forest departments fiat on more than 11,000 village forests (excluding those in Schedule V designated areas). This is likely to be a very conservative number, considering these community claims over forest lands. According to a conservative estimation of the Washington-based, Rights and Resources Initiative, the state has 3.6 million hectares of forests that could legally be handed over to tribals and forest-dwellers as traditional community forests under FRA. The Maharashtra government has, so far given community rights to 349,437 hectares. A large chunk of the other 3.3 million hectares of forest lands could now potentially come back under the state departments control. Documents reviewed by Business Standard shows the RSS-affiliated Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram wrote to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis that these regulations be done away with, claiming the imposition of these was fomenting anger in the state. The government has decided to go ahead and retain the regulations, with modifications. The tribal affairs ministry too, had earlier warned that the identification and settlement of community rights of tribals was in a nascent stage across the country, including Maharashtra and the state could not impose its own system till all the rights of the people were settled. It had warned that this would be to the detriment of the tribals and other forest-dwellers. But, it was eventually convinced to change its legal stance, with the cabinet secretariat weighing in. The Maharashtra government was persistently lobbying. Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar and Nitin Gadkari both Bharatiya Janata Party leaders from Maharashtra asked the tribal affairs ministry to back off. The preamble of FRA notes that the law was passed to correct the historical wrong done when tribal and others forest lands were taken over by the government summarily during the colonial era. Since then, the forest department had retained control over these forests and the trade in forest produce, which the erstwhile Planning Commission estimated was worth Rs 50,000 crore annually. This also led to hundreds of thousands of tribals being termed as encroachers on their traditional lands in government records. Under the rules, Maharashtra state forest department would have the powers to decide if and how tribals get access to their community forests by defining them as village forests. It would get to decide how the tribals sell forest produce and what revenues they can get from it. The forest department would also have the powers to withdraw these rights of tribals if it believes that the tribals and other forest-dwellers are not meeting the standards state government has set. This puts in place a route that other states also could follow to bypass handing over rights to tribals over their community forests. Madhya Pradesh has already followed suit. SEIZING CONTROL Trinamool Congress today announced its candidates for 70 Assembly constituencies in Kerala, a day after party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she would visit the southern state to expose the "unholy" alliance between Congress and CPI(M) in her state. Releasing the list at a press conference here, TMC's Kerala state president Manoj Sankaranellur said the party would field its candidates in all 140 Assembly constituencies in the state and that the second list would be released soon with the approval of the party chief Banerjee. She would attend three election rallies of the party in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode in April, he said. Claiming that party has two lakh members in Kerala, Manoj said the party is also eyeing on the support of over 15 lakh Bengalis currently working in the state. He claimed the Trinamool Congress votes can influence the election results in more than 40 Assembly seats. He, however, said the party would not be able to win a seat in the state. "We will emerge as a strong force after five years," he said. State President of the party's trade union wing (INTTUC), Subhash Kundannoor, claimed that many Congress leaders in Kerala, who are upset with the alliance in West Bengal, would soon join Trinamool Congress to fight such an "unholy nexus". Congress leaders, including former Chengannur MLA Sobhana George would join TMC to 'expose' CPI(M) and Congress "which are trying to fool the people" of Kerala, he said. Banerjee had said in Kolkata yesterday that she would visit Kerala to tell the people of the state how the two parties were trying to fool them. "We want to tell people of Kerala how Congress and CPI(M) are trying to fool them. If they are having an alliance, then they should have it everywhere in the country," she had said. She charged Congress with having "sold their flag and themselves" to the CPI(M). "Now they have forgotten their ideology - be it Gandhian or the ideology of Subhas Chandra Bose. Now the only ideology which is working is self-interest," she had said while releasing the TMC manifesto for the Assembly election. "In politics, transparency is a big thing. They don't have any transparency. They have formed an unholy alliance," Banerjee had said. Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson of the State Bank of India, has a simple message for defaulters in a conversation with Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7's Walk the Talk programme. Edited excerpts: How bad is the bad debt problem? When we started with this non-performing assets issue, the steel sector was not stressed. Now the steel sector is stressed because of dumping by China. Hopefully, over the next two quarters the pressure will ease. Then the upstream oil people are seeing stress because of the fall in oil prices. Business risks will continue to occur no matter what we do, but those risks don't come in as a lot, like this time. Normally it happens slowly, in one sector and not in the other. In this case, it all came together. So we don't expect to come out 100 per cent clean, but clean to some extent. Raghuram Rajan said first you accept the problem, and then you can deal with it... There is no question of not accepting the problem. But you can't go to a war without weapons. Even though there is a debt recovery tribunal, it takes too long for resolution. The effort required is humongous. And borrowers have access to enormous legal talent. I do not discuss accounts, but because there is so much public attention, probably it is known we have been fighting (against Vijay Mallya) in the debt recovery tribunal from 2013. We have had 81 hearings there. Various cases have been filed by him and we have filed counter-claims. There are 22 cases we are fighting here, and overall there have been 508 hearings. The number of adjournments is more than 180. For one particular villa (Mallya's villa in Goa), which we were trying to get possession of, the high court passed an order saying it should be done in three months. The order was issued to the collector. The collector, in turn, held eight hearings and then went on leave. This is the Goa government's collector? Normally, collectors are supposed to take possession, not hold hearings. But this person held eight hearings. We approached the attorney-general and said we need to really take up (Kingfisher Airline's loan default) in the highest court. We were told we had to go through debt recovery tribunal. The next day we moved the tribunal, which did not provide any relief. We went to the high court, which remitted it back to the tribunal, which did not give us the relief we are seeking. We need his assets under oath. What are assets under oath? What he owns. He should declare them under oath because he has given us a personal guarantee. I often hear of the distinction between the limited liability of a corporate and personal liability... Limited liability was created so that people could do big things. When you have an industry that needs hundreds and thousands of crores, you cannot give personal guarantees, it is a very big risk. And unless we create a risk-taking environment, there will be no business, no economy. But when does one go after a person? It is only when a personal guarantee is given. And when do we ask for a personal guarantee? We normally ask for a personal guarantee if a business is in trouble and still the promoter wants us to advance money. And which Mallya did... Yes, there was trouble in the account, the account was already stressed. He wanted another opportunity to try and turn it around. We felt it was right for him to get that opportunity, but just as we risked money, we also asked that he put in a personal guarantee. That's the reason why we have gone to him and not only after the assets of Kingfisher Airlines, because the guarantee was given by him, a guarantee was given by the holding company. We are going to go for recovery against all three. Mallya packaged Kingfisher Airlines very well... At one point all of us liked travelling by Kingfisher. It was an aspirational brand. When you went to the AG, he said go to the debt recovery tribunal. Then? We went to the tribunal but it did not give us any relief so next we went to the high court, which remitted it back to the tribunal. Then the tribunal issued its order which still didn't give us the relief we were seeking, which was his assets under oath. And then it went to the Supreme Court and is now posted for hearing. Some coverage says banks were lax and so he got away... I disagree with that. We tried our best to see the money is recovered quickly. Just as the government is looking at ease of doing business, it needs to look at ease of resolution. When something goes bad, resolution the world over happens in six-nine months' time. Here it goes on for years. Severe Weather Mississippi Water rises behind homes on Leeville Road as a flash flood warning was issued for Lamar and Forrest County in Petal, Miss., on Friday, March 11, 2016. Jackson County, however, managed to avoid the massive flooding experienced throughout many areas of the Deep South. (Susan Broadbridge/The Hattiesburg American) PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- Jackson County managed to avoid the major flooding that plagued so many other areas of the Deep South over the past two days, including New Orleans and Hattiesburg. "We dodged a bullet," said Earl Etheridge, Director of Jackson County Emergency Management Services. "We had a few areas, particularly in the north part of the county, which got up to five inches (of rain), but overall the average across the county was only about two and a half inches." Heavy rain arrived in Jackson County Friday morning, but lasted only a few hours, giving way to light, but steady rain throughout the rest of the day. There were reports of street flooding in a few low-lying areas of the county, but little more. In response to forecasts, which included flash flood watches and warnings, officials in Pascagoula, Moss Point, Ocean Springs and the county issued emergency declarations to allow for the sharing of resources -- which ultimately proved to be only a precautionary, rather than necessary, measure. Other areas were not so fortunate. Major flooding was reported in areas of Hancock County, as well as the Hattiesburg/Petal area, where as many as 1,000 residents were dealing with flooding of homes. Some additional rain was forecast to fall on the Mississippi coast Saturday night, but only in small amounts. Etheridge said the Escatawpa River had not reached flood stage, which was "good news," but he added the Pascagoula River is expected to rise over the weekend and reach flood stage by Tuesday or Wednesday and "probably stay there through next Sunday." Residents along the Pascagoula River can expect to see yards and streets flood, Etheridge said. "The people who live along the river know what to expect when the river floods," he said. PM addresses the Closing Ceremony of the Centenary Year celebrations of Patna High Court . . The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today delivered an address at the Closing Ceremony of the Centenary Year celebrations of Patna High Court. . . Addressing the gathering at Patna High Court, the Prime Minister spoke of the great heights achieved by this Court in the last one hundred years. He said that the best aspects of these one hundred years should be taken forward. He added that this was an occasion for fresh resolve, and called upon all stakeholders to strive to establish new benchmarks in the years ahead. . . The Prime Minister spoke of the great power of technology, and said the bar, bench and court should all be techno-savvy. The active use of technology will improve the quality of both arguments and judgements, he added. . . US regulators raised questions about the safety of Abbott Laboratories; Absorb, a medical device for propping open clogged heart arteries that dissolves back into the body over time, ahead of a decision on whether to clear the first-of-its-kind device for sale. The stent, already approved in 100 countries, is one of the key items in the Abbott Park, Illinois-based company's pipeline for the US market. It was developed to reap the benefits of stents, which hold vulnerable arteries open to ensure sufficient blood flow to the heart, while also reducing their risks, such as the formation of ... The Buddhist group leading a global campaign of harassment against the has called off its demonstrations and disbanded, according to a statement on its website. The announcement comes after a Reuters investigation revealed in December that China's ruling Communist Party backs the Buddhist religious sect behind the protests that have confronted the in almost every country he visits. Reuters found that the sect had become a key instrument in China's campaign to discredit the Tibetan spiritual leader. The directors of the Shugden Community (ISC) had decided to "completely stop organising demonstrations against the Dalai Lama," said the statement on the website of the Buddhist group. From March 10, the ISC and its websites would dissolve, the statement added, without giving any explanation. The undated message was in the name of Len Foley, an ISC spokesman. The telephone number for Foley listed on the group's earlier publicity material is now disconnected. Nicholas Pitts, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for the ISC, did not respond to a request for comment. The said he was aware of the decision by the ISC to disband. "I don't know," he said, when asked what was behind the group's announcement. More than five decades after he fled into exile in India following a failed uprising against Chinese rule, the Dalai Lama still exerts considerable religious authority over many of the six million ethnic Tibetans living within China's borders. This infuriates Beijing, which routinely denounces him as a separatist, accusing him of trying to split Tibet from China. In the US, the ISC is registered as a charity in California. Since 2014, its spokespeople have said they are responsible for organising the protests but denied any link with Beijing or the Chinese Communist Party. The protesters are members of a sect that worships Dorje Shugden, a deity in Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama discourages this worship, warning his followers that the deity is a harmful spirit. Dorje Shugden devotees accuse the 80-year-old Nobel Laureate of persecuting them and dividing Tibetan Buddhism. "I myself also worshipped that," the Dalai Lama said, referring to the deity. "Out of ignorance." But he came to the realisation that the deity was "very negative, very harmful," he said. This had been an obscure, internal religious dispute, but it has been exported to the West. The protests have followed the Dalai Lama on his regular speaking tours to cities in North America, Europe and Australia. has decided to end its 26-year sponsorship of the Tate group of art museums, one of Britain's most high-profile cultural institutions, the energy giant and Tate said. The sponsorship has been the target of protesters for years, including after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 when activists poured a slick substance on the steps of Tate Britain, but a spokesman said the oil company was ending the arrangement purely for financial reasons. The spokesman, David Nicholas, said it was "a commercial decision" prompted by the collapse in oil prices which has led to a decline in BP's profit since the summer of 2014. Last month, reported a $6.5 billion loss for 2015. Nicholas said that at a time when BP was cutting jobs and slashing investment, "our arts sponsorship programme does not have an exemption." Activists who have protested the funding described the decision as a major victory that could pressure other cultural institutions to end their corporate ties. "We're thrilled with the news Tate is rid of BP," Yasmin de Silva, a member of one of the protest group Liberate Tate, said in a statement. "About 30 years ago, the tide turned on tobacco sponsorship, and now the same thing is happening to the oil industry." BP's sponsorship of Tate dates from 1990. It has largely focused on Tate Britain, the museum in the Pimlico area of London that houses work by British artists such as JMW Turner and William Blake. The oil company sponsors the display of Tate Britain's permanent collection as well as special features like a branded "BP Walk through British Art" in the museum's galleries. At first glance, the loss of BP's existing contribution, which was reported in January 2015 to be about 224,000 pounds, or nearly $319,000, a year over 17 years, may not seem like a major loss to a museum with an operating income of 92 million. But the decision to halt the sponsorship comes as government funding for cultural institutions, which accounts for about one-third of Tate's income, is under pressure in Britain. Tate's other institutions in England include Tate Modern on the south bank of the Thames in London and museums in Liverpool and Cornwall. Tate is one of four major British cultural institutions with longstanding funding arrangements from BP. The oil company also contributes to the Royal Opera House, British Museum and National Portrait Gallery. In 2011, BP said it would spend a total of 10 million on the four institutions over the following five years. Nicolas, the spokesman, said that BP had no plans to stop sponsoring the other institutions, adding that the Tate deal was the first to come up for renewal. The flow of BP support to Tate is to end in the first quarter of next year, when the arrangement expires. The protests against BP's relationship with Tate have also included a legal action to compel the museum to reveal the amount of the sponsorship, a demonstration at Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, and a brief occupation of part of Tate Britain in November in which activists tattooed environmental messages on one another. In a telephone interview, Mel Evans, a member of Liberate Tate, said she hoped that other institutions would end their relationships with BP and other oil . "We think it's important that art space is protected for the public and not co-opted by an oil company," she said. 2016 The New York Times South by Southwest is a sort of geek prom, where each year an app is crowned queen. The event in Austin, Texas, which helped launch Twitter and put Airbnb on the map, has also been known to give "false signals," as venture capitalist Jeremy Liew put it. After so many flops, techies are starting to wonder whether there might be a SXSW curse. Several apps that captured conference goers' attention at the show in years past have since seen their businesses undergo trouble or disappear completely. Here's a look back at the apps that have lost their cool: Foursquare In 2009 ... Former Pakistan president general Pervez Musharraf has been exempted from appearing before an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC), but ordered the police to produce the former military ruler's physician at the next hearing of the judges' detention case. Sohail Ikram, ATC Judge, has summoned Musharraf's doctor Imtiaz Hashmi to appear before the court on March 25. Public prosecutor Amir Nadeem Tabish argued before the court that the former president has been avoiding the court on medical grounds for over two years now, adding that He even argued that Musharraf's counsel submits the same report at every hearing to justify the deliberate absence of the accused, following which, the court has summoned to doctor Hashmi to ascertain authenticity of the medical report. The court has also directed the SHO Secretariat to procure the attendance of Hashmi at the next hearing. In a bizarre incident, over 5000 people attended a canine wedding in Pawara village of Kaushambi district of Uttar Pradesh. The marriage took place as per Hindu traditions in the Pawara village which welcomed the guest with full fervour. The attendees came to the ceremony dancing to the tunes of DJ. The 'groom' Shagun belonged to Basant Tripathy, while the 'bride' Shaguniya belonged to Jung Bahadur. Traditional Indian cuisine was served to the attendees, who came for the wedding. Jung Bahadur gave a tearful send off to Shaguniya, who departed along with her groom in a car. The much publicised China - Pakistan Economic Corridor ( CPEC ) is meant to enrich only the rich and the powerful in Pakistan according to high level MQM sources who added that China is aware of this and is using CPEC as a payoff to the Pakistani politicians for permitting a massive Chinese footprint inside Pakistan. According to Muttahida Qami Movement (MQM) sources, the handing over of the Gwadar Port to China for development in the early part of 2013, has led to other trade corridors being developed, and in turn, is allowing Pakistan's powerful politicians to plunder the economy in a willful and rapacious manner. The MQM sources, who were speaking on condition of anonymity, have further revealed that the Chinese are aware of this uncontrolled exploitation of projects and deals related to the proposed Gwadar-Kashgar Trade Corridor, but they have conveniently turned a blind eye, as they feel an opportunity exists for Beijing to establish a strong hold in Pakistan. A recent report has shown that a major portion of the capital allocated for power projects, for instance, has nothing to do with the proposed trade corridors in the Gwadar-Kashgar region, and is instead being utilized for projects in the Sharif stronghold of Punjab (province). According to MQM sources, only a meagre amount of 1153 million dollars has been allocated for a few projects in Gwadar, which are yet to start or take off, and therefore, Pakistan's Planning Commission needs to be taken to task for not taking steps to operationalise the port first by commencing transhipment to attract a good volume of business and emerge as a viable alternative to the Dubai Port, the ninth busiest port of the world, which attracts 13 million TEUs (Twenty-Foot Equivalent (shipping container) Units) annually. A Reuter's news agency report recently quoted Ashraf Mahmood Wathra, the Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, as saying, "CPEC needs to be made more transparent. I don't know out of the 46 billion dollars, how much is debt, how much is equity and how much is kind." This indirect critique of the CPEC from a government-run bank that has repeatedly referred to the CPEC projects as the best hope for reviving economic growth in Pakistan, is startling, and almost categorically exposes the monopolistic shenanigans of the country's powerful elite. MQM sources are of the view that at least eight to nine years have already been wasted to operationalise the Gwadar Port because of what they call "ill-conceived planning" of the CPEC by the Planning Commission of Pakistan, and have warned that there is a risk of many more years going to waste if a forum is not created to ensure concrete development-related integration. They further claim that this wilful economic aggrandizement of the proposed CPEC has the tacit and sinister approval of the Nawaz Sharif-led PML-N leadership. The sources are categorical in demanding the immediate creation of an authorised council/board/body that will take full responsibility of the CPEC-related deals from the inception stage to the conclusive stage, and insist that the work must be done on a war footing to gain maximum inputs and derive maximal gains. They say that the main objectives of the council should be as follows: . Explore the potential of the Gwadar Project/CPEC to make it viable for all stakeholders and create a win-win situation. . To formulate strategic concepts of business and implement it in a fashion that reaps more advantages and serves the country rather than just being a beneficiary. . Ensure speedy implementation to attract more business and investment, and guard against existing vulnerabilities . The council should be in a position to address all ills and grievances . The council should work with China on viable conceptual policy formulation and implementation phases as this ensure both continuity of the thought process as well as implementation at all levels. . The working of the Gwadar project/CPEC should not be altered or affected due to a change of government or individual authority . The council must ensure that funds allocated for the project are utilized properly and do not fall into the hands of vested interests or parochial parties. . Insofar as the Western Corridor i.e. all trade corridors (China and CARs) are concerned, it must be ensured that they save both time and money, pass through underdeveloped areas and have elements of national integration to attract the next generation to take part in the development process. The overall contention is that the CPEC should shore up Pakistan's crumbling infrastructure and reduce its electricity shortages. From China's perspective, the CPEC provides a free trade zone to the Gwadar Port and the all important access to the Indian Ocean and the Middle East. Citing safety concerns, republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trum postponed his rally in Chicago at the last minute which provoked angry eruptions from the mixed crowd of anti-Trump protesters and supporters. The rally was due to take place at the University of Illinois' Chicago Pavilion According to the Guardian, arrests were made following the clashes after which Trump told MSNBC, "We are not even allowed to have a rally anymore in this country. You can't even have a rally in a major city in this country anymore without violence or the potential for violence. It's sad when you can't have a rally. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? The right to get together and speak in a peaceful manner?" Violent scuffles broke out between Trump's supporters, protesters and the police as the agitators crowded the sidewalks, pushing at barricades formed by police. At the same time, a spontaneous blockade of a parking garage formed, creating a standoff between Trump's supporters in the multi-level garage and screaming protesters on the ground below. Inside the venue of the rally, protesters expressed their hostility to Trump's positions on immigration, race and more while supporters shouted back. After the postponement was announced, a Trump campaign statement said: "Mr Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight's rally will be postponed to another date. Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace." At the site of the Chicago rally, dozens of protesters, wearing shirts with slogans such as "Muslims united against Trump", were kicked out of the site as attendees cursed and exchanged vulgar gestures. The 'Murder' famed actor Emraan Hashmi's mother Maherahh Hashmi has passed away at the Hinduja hospital. According to sources, Maherahh, who was suffering from cancer, was admitted at a city hospital in Mumbai where she breathed her last. It is being said that the 36-year-old actor, who was in Romania for 'Raaz 4' shooting, will soon be heading back to Mumbai. The last rites will be performed on Sunday. Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure. WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary , Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase: Click here to read more. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that reforms of global institutions has to be an on-going process adding that it must reflect changes in the global economy, and the rising share of emerging economies. Prime Minister Modi, while speaking at International Monetary Fund-Ministry of Finance conference on 'Advancing Asia: Investing for the Future', pointed out that even now IMF quotas do not reflect the global economic realities. "I am, therefore very happy that the IMF has decided to finalize the next round of quota changes by October 2017, India has always had great faith in multi-lateralism," he said. The Prime Minister further said that the IMF has built up an immense stock of economic expertise and all its members should take advantage of this. "All of us need to pursue policies that provide a stable macro economy, enhance growth and further inclusion, apart from advice; the IMF can help in building capacity for policy making," he added. Asserting that Asia is the ray of hope for global economic recovery, Prime Minister Modi said many knowledgeable people have said that the twenty first century is and will be the Asian Century. Asserting that India is pursuing growth through co-operative federalism, Prime Minister on Saturday said the country has dispelled the myth that democracy and rapid economic growth cannot go together. "India has also shown that a large, diverse country can be managed in a way that can promote economic growth and maintain social stability. Our rapid economic growth is also very distinct in Asia. We have never tried to gain in trade at expense of our partners," Prime Minister Modi while speaking at International Monetary Fund-Ministry of Finance conference on 'Advancing Asia: Investing for the Future', said. "The entrepreneurship is booming in the country following a series of steps we have taken. We have achieved major gains in macroeconomic stability," he added. Modi has said India has historically contributed to Asia in several ways, saying everybody wanted the continent to succeed. He also said that corruption and interference in the decisions of banks and regulators are now behind the government. Prime Minister Modi said that his government has increased investment in the rural and agriculture sector asserting that these are the sectors where a majority population nation resides. "But our help to the farmers is not based on giving hand-outs as we aim to double farmer incomes," he added. Modi in his speech also recalled India's 70 years old association with IMF. Meanwhile, Christine Lagarde the Managing Director of the IMF, said it was a proud moment as India joined China and Japan in the list of the top 10 members of IMF, adding that it was "overdue". "India in next decade may become the largest global economy in the world," Lagarde added. IMF chief Lagarde and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also exchanged MoUs to establish the IMF Assistance Centre in India. Condemning the encounter in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district, the state's Home Minister, Ajay Chandrakar, said on Saturday that the incident was reflective of the frustration prevailing among the Maoists, and added that India's fight against terrorism will move forward. "This is the last phase of tussle. Our fight will move forward. Naxals are surrendering gradually. The encounters won't have any effect. We will not back down. This is a sign of frustration by the Maoists," Chandrakar told the media here. Two Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were killed and four injured in a fierce encounter which is underway with Maoists in Kanker. In the special operations which were launched from Kanker last night by 170,122 and 165 Battalions of the BSF and the civil police near Becha village, a gunbattle ensued with Naxals in which six BSF personnel were injured. The injured personnel were evacuated to Raipur in a chopper during which two personnel succumbed to their injuries. A three-week-long counter-terrorism military exercise 'North Thunder' which included 21 countries concluded yesterday in Saudi Arabia with pomp and show. Saudi King Salman, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi , along with other Heads of states from across the Muslim witnessed the grand closing ceremony reported the Dawn. The leaders watched the contingents March past the stage and several other military exercises. Fighter aircraft of Pakistan performed aerobatics, including a performance by two JF-17 Thunders and the Sherdil formation with its eight Karakoram-8 aircraft. The soldiers jumped from helicopters carrying flags of the countries participating in the exercise. Sharif along with his Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif and Special Assistant to the premier on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi arrived on a three-day trip Saudi Arabia to witness the closing ceremony on Wednesday. on Saturday kicked off a three-day anti-elephantiasis campaign across the nation's 36 districts in a bid to wipe out the disease caused by filarial worms. According to reports, anti-elephantiasis medicines will be distributed to 13 million people. The government since 2003 has launched the campaign against lymphatic filariasis after cases of mosquito-borne disease were traced in 61 districts. Dr Baburam Marasini, Director at the Epidemiology and Diseases Control Division of Department of Services said that the medicines would be given to folks free of charge, reports the Himalayan Times. Dr Marasini also said that medicines against the diseases should be taken in six different phases but the children below two years, aspirant mothers, patients of epilepsy and patients of serious illness should not take these medicines. A total of 13,078 workers and 65,678 volunteers have been mobilised to make the campaign a success. The similar campaign was earlier held in 27 districts. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has refuted Bollywood actor Anupam Kher's allegation that it blocked the screening of his film- 'Buddha in a Traffic Jam' on campus, saying that there was no space in the varsity's programme to screen the film. Professor of Film Studies at the university, Ira Bhaskar, told ANI, "Usually a last minute request can only be accommodated if the faculty approves of it and also if a slot suddenly falls free, because somebody has withdrawn from the programme. Since it was not possible, I said it's not possible. They have not applied to the JNU administration.not applied to any student body. So, the question of not allowing the film to screen doesn't actually arise because there is no space in the programme in our school." "A girl called Nairita had written an email to me as a member of the faculty at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, saying that the director would like the film to be screened at our school. This email came on 26th February. I was out of Delhi at that time, and therefore, could not check with my faculty members whether it is possible to screen the film at certain short notice," she added. Bhaskar added that she returned to Delhi on March 7 and the next day she informed Nairita that there was no slot free for the screening of the film in the school. "I told Nairita on the phone that maybe we can consider it for next semester. But we will have to address that in June -July, when we are preparing the calendar for the next semester. There is no controversy. I agree with Mr. Kher that opinion of all kinds should have space in a university campus," she added. Kher on Friday urged the varsity students to practice 'freedom of speech and expression' for which they have been raising their voices in recent times. "We are told that for six months there are no slots, may be they can create a slot. It's only a request.... If a section of JNU students have freedom of speech and expression then we should translate it into a practice for other people to be able to see the film," Kher told ANI. Kher said that the film deals with the education system and how the system polarises students. "I did Buddha in a traffic jam working with Vivek Agnihotri as producer director. The film deals with education system and how the system sometimes polarises the students and how the system educates students in a certain manner," he said. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday said the opposition's criticism of the World Culture Festival is irrational and habitual. "The opposition is trying to make that into a political issue. I think it has become a fashion or habit of some parties or some persons to condemn and criticise anything associated with Hindu, Indian or Bharatiya. It's really unfortunate. There is no rational in their criticism of the World Culture Event," Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu told ANI. "They are criticising the World Culture Festival, which is aimed to bring all the nations, religions and cultures together and also to develop an in-depth understanding between all these cultures so that we can all move forward and live in peace," he added. Naidu further stated that the World Culture Festival brings prestige to India and it is a happy union of all the cultures. "Instead of appreciating, you criticize it and you try to condemn it and then say that army is also being misused. You want to cry on that issue. The army indeed has done a good job. Lakhs of people were coming to Delhi, so there was a need to have a safety and security. They are making hue and cry over it, forgetting that they did it umpteen number of times when they were in power," he added. Earlier, the Green Tribunal (NGT) told Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living (AOL) foundation's to deposit Rs. 25 lakhs today and the balance amount of the penalty of Rs. five crores issued for the World Culture Festival within three weeks. The NGT had on Wednesday cleared the three-day festival on the Yamuna floodplains but rebuked the organizers and the government for failing to take enough precaution to protect the venue's ecosystem. Pakistan Ambassador to the United States Jalil Abbas Jilani has hailed the U.S. Senate vote that rejected a measure to block the sale of eight F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan. "We appreciate the leadership of the U.S. Congress in consistently supporting the Pak-U.S. counter-terrorism partnership. The vote is a demonstration of the strength and resilience of Pak-U.S. relationship," the Dawn quoted Jilani, as saying. The U.S. State Department had notified the U.S. Congress of its intention to sell weapons worth 700 million dollars to Pakistan, which included the eight F-16s. According to reports, the department argued that the jets were critical to Pakistan's efforts to deny terrorists a safe haven within its borders. The U.S. Congress had 30 days to object to the move and once this mandatory period to question the need for the deal had passed, it would automatically become effective. The U.S. Senate on Thursday had rejected a measure to block the proposed sale by 71 to 24 votes. But Pakistan will have to overcome another hurdle before the deal is finalised which is getting U.S. financing, a little over 50 percent for the weapons. The mandatory period expires today. The Senate adjourned on Friday and will resume only on Monday, which leaves no room for blocking the deal. U.S. President Barrack Obama's administration has earmarked 860 million dollars for Pakistan for the next fiscal year which included 265 million dollars for military hardware. As the nation celebrates the 86th Dandi March anniversary today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi remembered the satyagrahis who joined Mahatma Gandhi's clarion call for the Salt March to protest against the British salt laws. "Saluting all those who joined the Dandi March, following Bapu's clarion call and inspired by his ideals," Prime Minister Modi said in a tweet. The Prime Minister also tweeted a picture of the Mahatma Gandhi picking up grains of salt at the end of his march in Dandi. It was March 1, 1930, when Mahatma Gandhi and 78 satyagrahis set out on foot for the coastal village of Dandi to protest British salt laws. They covered 390 kilometres from Satyagraha Ashram, popularly known as the Sabarmati Ashram, to Dandi in south Gujarat. This turning point in the freedom struggle of the nation has since inspired a number of marches. The Sabarmati Ashram holds a special place as the starting point of the epic journey. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Patna today on a day-long visit to Bihar where he will dedicate to the nation the newly constructed Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge and inaugurate a new rail bridge in Munger. The Prime Minister will also kick-start the operation of the goods trains on the newly constructed rail portion of Munger Rail-Cum Road Bridge from Sahebpur Kamal end in Begusarai district. He will also lay the foundation stone of the additional rail bridge near existing Rajendra Bridge in Mokama over the river Ganga. The Prime Minister will attend the concluding function of the centenary celebrations of Patna High Court and he will also address public meetings at Chhaukia in Hajipur. According to a UN report, South Sudanese government allowed its soldiers and militias to rape women in lieu of wages, torture and murder suspected opponents and deliberately displace as many people as possible during the country's civil war. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a harrowing document on Friday; six months after accounts emerged revealing the systematic abduction and abuse of thousands of women and girls during the conflict. The report revealed the atrocities committed by both sides since the war broke out in December 2013 and warned that many of those may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity, adding that most of the civilian casualties were the result of deliberately targeted attacks rather than combat operations. While the report found that all sides had committed "serious violations and abuses", it was unequivocal in asserting that "the government appears to be responsible for the gross and systematic human rights violations". The UN recorded more than 1,300 reports of rape in Unity state alone, an oil-rich area in the north of the country that has seen some of the worst violence of the conflict from April to September last year. It added that the opposition forces in 2014 harried towns in the area, turning churches, mosques and hospitals into veritable traps for civilians. The civilians were deliberately targeted again ever after the forces scattered in 2015 in the face of an offensive waged by government troops in the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The report noted that the prevalence of rape suggested that its use had become "an acceptable practice by SPLA soldiers and affiliated armed militias". Its assessment team was told that youth militias who carry out attacks with the SPLA had an agreement - "do what you can and take what you can". The report said that Most of the youth therefore also raided cattle, stole personal property, raped and abducted women and girls as a form of payment. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the OHCHR said that while was one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, the situation was struggling to attract attention reports the Guardian. "The scale and types of sexual violence - primarily by government SPLA forces and affiliated militia - are described in searing, devastating detail, as is the almost casual, yet calculated, attitude of those slaughtering civilians and destroying property and livelihoods. However, the quantity of rapes and gang-rapes described in the report must only be a snapshot of the real total," Guardian quoted him as saying. Meanwhile the government flatly rejected suggestions that SPLA soldiers have been involved in the human rights abuses detailed in the report. "We condemn in the strongest terms possible any crimes committed against civilians," Ateny Wek Ateny, a spokesman for President, Salva Kiir, reports the Guardian. Ateny, said that the atrocities may have been carried out by militias wearing SPLA uniforms and insisted that government troops operated under strict rules of engagement that prohibit the targeting of civilians. South Sudan, the world's youngest country, has been in conflict since December 2013, when President Kiir accused Riek Machar, his former vice-president of plotting a coup. The fight tore the country apart along sectarian lines, pitting supporters of Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, against those backing Machar, an ethnic Nuer. At least 50,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million further displaced in the past two years. Leaders of Nepal's United Democratic Madhesi Front (UMDL) held talks with Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli yesterday for the first time since withdrawing their protests that included a border blockade over the new constitution. The UDMF leaders submitted a seven- point memorandum to Oli urging his government to address their demand before mid-April. Oli assured the leaders that his government would bear the expenses for those injured during the protest, said the Co-chair of the Sadbhawana Party, Laxman Lal Karna, reports the Himalayan Times. Karna also said that Agni Prasad Kharel , the Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs was asked to give suggestions on the UDMF's demand to withdraw cases against its cadres and to form a judicial committee to investigate into protest related deaths within a day or two. Though no political issues were discussed in the meeting, Prime Minister Oli said that he had formed a political committee under Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamal Thapa and the UDMF should join it to find solution to the issues of provincial boundaries. "We did not have enough time to discuss these issues, but we asked the prime minister whether the prominent leaders of the major parties and the Nepali Congress would join the Thapa led committee," the Himlayan Times quoted Karna, as saying. In the meeting, Prime Minister Oli told UDMF leaders that political issues will be focused upon once pending issues are resolved. We have an array of sub-4m SUVs coming our way pretty soon! The overwhelming success of the second generation Swift Dzire was one of the main reasons for the arrival of the Honda Amaze and the Hyundai Xcent. Tata also joined the bandwagon with the Zest; while the latest entrants include the Ford Figo Aspire and the yet to be launched Volkswagen Ameo. On similar lines, the runaway success of the Ford EcoSport prompted Mahindra and Maruti to introduce their products in the untapped sub 4 metre SUV segment. Other manufacturers too are keen on taking a bite out of the pie and have lined up their offerings for the segment. To begin with, the Tata Nexon will be the next sub-compact SUV to go on sale. Showcased at the recently held 2016 Expo in its production guise, the Nexon will go on sale later this year. Rumours suggest that the Nexon will be powered by a new 1.5-litre diesel motor which will produce close to 110 horses, making it the most powerful sub-4m SUV as of now. The petrol engine will be from Tata's 'Revotron' family and is likely to be a 1.2 litre turbocharged unit packing over 100bhp. Moreover, we feel that the Tata Nexon has almost everything 'Out of the Box'! Hyundai's 'big surprise' at the 2016 Expo was the HND-14 concept aka the Carlino. While the production-spec version is still a year or two away, the Carlino did give us an insight into the design. While there's no concrete news of the features or the engine options, we can expect it to be on par with its rivals; especially the Vitara Brezza. The powertrains are expected to be borrowed from the Elite i20. Hyundai might also plonk in a 1.0-litre turbocharged petrol to rival the EcoSport Ecoboost. It is expected to be launched somewhere in 2017 or early 2018. Honda has also started testing their upcoming subcompact crossover/SUV in Brazil as well. Likely to be called the 'WR-V', the compact SUV will be one size smaller than the seven-seater 'BR-V' Honda plans on launching in India this year. Brazilian media reported that Honda plans on unveiling the production spec WR-V at the Sao Paulo Motor Show in November this year. The sub 4 metre SUV is aimed squarely at developing economies like ours. We expect the WR-V to make its way to our shores late next year. Read in depth about Honda WR-V. Recommended: Tata Motors Did a Better Job than Maruti Suzuki! Source : CarDekho At least 10 people were killed and over 25 injured when a tractor-trolley carrying a body for cremation fell into an open well in a Gujarat village on Saturday. The incident occurred at Bhotwa-Gadh village in Mahisagar district. Mahisagar District Superintendent of Police M.K. Amin said the tractor-trolley with 39 people was heading to the cremation ground in Gadh. It went out of the driver's control on a slope, falling into an open well. The 25 injured people were rushed to two nearby hospitals. Police said the casualties might go up as the condition of some of the injured was serious. As many as 140,902 non-bailable warrants (NBW) have been executed since December in West Bengal, an Election Commission official said here on Saturday "As many as 140,902 NBWs have been executed from December 1 last year. As many as 46,000 NBWs execution is left. The execution rate has improved," additional chief electoral officer Dibyendu Sarkar said here. "So far there have been no reports of election-related violence," he said. Sarkar said a total of 5,993 polling stations in the state will have VVPAT system. Meanwhile, 384,218 litres of illicit liquor has been seized so far, he said. Deputy election commisser S. Saxena, who will be in the city on Sunday, will hold a video conference with state team, and the district magistrates and superintendents of police, he said. For the first phase of polls comprising 18 seats, one nomination has been received on Saturday after the Election Commssion issued the notification for filing of candidature, he said. Amitabh Bachchan, who is shooting in the capital for Shoojit Sircar's new production, went incognito and walked on the streets of the national capital without being recognised. The megastar is glad for the "masked wonders" and appreciates the "oblivion" state. The 73-year-old star took to his official blog to share his experience, and shared a string of photographs in which he is seen wearing khaki trousers, loose fitted shirt and a training mask, which is covering half of his face. "The masked wonder on the streets of crowded Delhi and ne'er an eye is raised...this is what what life is all about 'buddy'. Its called indifference, unrecognisable, and even if recognisable not interested in recognising ... happens to all that were once recognisable ... shall happen to all ... its not something that shall bring the oceans at your feet," Big B shared. In one of the images, he can be seen crossing a busy junction of the capital, and in another photograph, he is walking in solitude with just one passer-by - a street dog. The "Piku" star also shared: "See what I mean ... this is one of the most crowded and busy crossings in my part of the city ... and... no problem. Except for this fellow. Few and far...and the oblivion persists." The social-thriller is directed by National Award-winning Bengali director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, who is stepping into Hindi films with the project. The story line of the film, which also stars Taapsee Pannu, is still under wraps. After enjoying a walk with no cameras swarming around him, Amitabh also lauded the make up artist. He said: "The make up artist does supreme ... the hours of work on the face sublime and the efforts made to carry forward a story, simply stupendous." On the professional front, the actor has wrapped up shooting for "Te3n". Sharing the progress of Ribhu Dasgupta's directorial ", he shared: "'TE3N' is now on final post productions ... music song dub and its final colouring ... edits are done and satisfactory." The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday decided to hold six big rallies in Uttar Pradesh soon in preparation for the state assembly polls and propagate the benefits for farmers contained in the recent budget. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting of the BJP, addressed by the party in-charge and national vice-president Om Mathur here. The public rallies would be held at Mau, Allahabad, Lucknow, Moradabad and Jehanabad in Kanpur and they will be addressed by the BJP's national president Amit Shah and union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The organisational meeting also appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the crop insurance scheme rolled out for farmers. State spokesman Manoj Mishra said it was also decided that the party leaders would explain the nuances of the budget to the people at the grassroots level and make them aware of how the budget would ring in development and prosperity in rural India. A meeting of all party MP's from the state has been convened in New Delhi on March 14, scheduled to be addressed by Amit Shah. It was also decided that April 6, the party's foundation day would be celebrated as 'Samarpan Diwas' and on April 14, the birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar will be celebrated in all districts of Uttar Pradesh with fanfare. Brazilian President said she would not resign despite the widening corruption probe that has ensnared her, the media reported on Saturday. "A resignation is a voluntary act, and those who want me to resign should know that there are no basis to forcibly remove me from this position," she said on Friday. There were calls to Rousseff to resign, most recently from Senator Aecio Neves, whom Rousseff defeated in the 2014 election by a small margin, Xinhua news agency reported. "I will not leave this office without motive," she added. Calls for her impeachment have continued despite the supreme court shutting down a formal impeachment process which began in December 2015. Rousseff's mentor and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is being investigated for suspected charges of money laundering and bearing false witness. Cesar Millan, the star of the Nat Geo Wild series "Dog Whisperer", is under investigation over allegations of animal cruelty. The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control major case unit visited Cesar's dog psychology center in Santa Clarita, California on Thursday to launch the investigation, reports tmz.com. The visit came after the department was flooded with complaints following the February 26 episode of "Cesar 911". In the show, Milan used a method to stop a French Bulldog named Simon from attacking other dogs. He then put a pig during the training so that the dog wouldn't get hurt if it performed some aggressive actions. Unfortunately, the dog bit the poor pig's ear and it started to bleed. Later on Thursday, a representative for Nat Geo Wild released a statement to defend Milan. "The pig that was nipped by Simon was tended to immediately afterward, healed quickly and showed no lasting signs of distress," the statement read. According to Nat Geo Wild, Milan managed to curb Simon's behavioural problems and helped the dog overcome his aggression. "As a result, Simon did not have to be separated from his owner or euthanised," the statement continued. China has condemned an invitation to the Dalai Lama to attend an event on the sidelines of an ongoing UN human rights meeting, the media reported on Saturday. Reports said the US and Canada co-sponsored a conference around Nobel peace prize winners, on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council's 31st session in Geneva. The Dalai Lama was invited for the conference, which was chaired by UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore, the Global Times reported. The US side insisted on inviting the Dalai Lama to attend the activity regardless of China' s firm opposition. "We have lodged solemn representations to relevant parties," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei. Hong said the Dalai Lama is a political exile who has long been engaged in activities to split China instead of being a simple religious person. China was also against officials from any country having contact with the Dalai Lama in any form. The ongoing world's largest travel trade show ITB-Berlin has chosen 'Compassionate Kozhikode' as one of the 50 inspirational projects from around the world and the only one from India. This unique programme was the brainchild of Kozhikode district collector P. Prasanth who said their mission was to bring together several grassroots projects in the city and it brought together people from all walks of life with the aim of transforming the lives of ordinary people by joining hands with them to find solutions. 'Operation Sulaimani' was one of the projects under 'Compassionate Kozhikode', that roped in local restaurants and hotels to ensure none of the city's inhabitants goes hungry. Other projects include the 'Legends of Kozhikode' project that documents and shares many hidden stories and characters of the region. Another called 'The Kozhipedia', is an Open Streetmap based project where volunteers collect and record information about everything from roads, streets, pathways, stories, legends, folklore, cultural and natural heritage. 'Savirigiri' works to provide students travelling by public transport with security and dignity. This project was showcased at the ongoing five-day ITB-Berlin, being held in the German capital that ends Sunday in the category '50 Destinations, 50 Encounters, 50 Stories'. "Positioning a destination based on the value of compassion is one of the most disruptive ideas we have come across when it comes to destination development and promotion," said Rika Jean-Francoise, CSR commissioner of ITB-Berlin at the ITB50 launch event. The project has already captured the attention of international organisations Asian Ecotourism Network, which focuses on sustainable tourism in the continent which has announced that its next conference would take place in Kozhikode. "We are excited and encouraged by the responses from around the world to our initiative. We are confident that the project will not only help the people in Kozhikode, but it will also serve millions of others around the world," said district collector Prasanth. A two-day special meeting of Tripura's ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist began here on Saturday to make members "more ideologically acquainted". "The purpose of the special meeting of CPI-M Tripura unit is to make the party members and local leaders more ideologically acquainted. This is more important for those who entered the party in recent years," CPI-M state secretary Bijan Dhar told reporters. The closed-door meeting, in which 400 delegates are taking part, would lead to "a precise action plan", he said. The decision to hold the meeting was taken at Kolkata plenum held on December 27-31 last year. Tripura Chief Minister and CPI-M politburo member Manik Sarkar, party's all seven central committee members from the state, and other senior leaders would address the meet. Dhar, also a CPI-M central committee member, said that regular party classes are being held and the party has been taking steps to guide the party men to remain on the right track. "Quality of party members is a big issue for us. Our rectification move is on and this is an endless task. To maintain quality of membership is also a non-stop endeavour," Dhar said. The party leaders were closely watching the behaviour, performance, activities, manners and life style of party cadre and members, he added. Fashion can be the balm that can lend a healing touch to relations and bring India and Pakistan closer, feels Pakistani fashion designer Huma Nassr. "We can speak peace through fashion. Let the politicians do whatever they are doing at their level, let's talk about fashion. There is a lot in terms of fashion that India and Pakistan can exchange," Huma, the creator of the fashion label Braahtii, told IANS here. Huma is organising the second edition of "Shaan-e-Pakistan- Kya Dilli Kya Lahore" event in Lahore this month. The three-day event would see participation by a number of Indian and Pakistani designers, musicians and artistes. "This is going to be a fashion-cum-music-cum-food event. It is an amalgamation of various things. This event is a little effort by me to bring the people of India and Pakistan closer," said Huma, who is in the capital in connection with the event. "This time around Rekha Bhardwaj, Zeenat Aman and chef Mujeeb ur Rehman and a few Indian designers and artistes are coming to Lahore. We love Indian vegetarian food and want the Indian culinary magic recreated there. In turn, we too have some delicacies to offer," she added. Imposing higher taxes on citizens is positively linked to how well the public authorities and institutions in that country work, says a study based on analysis of statistics for taxation and governance from most of the world's countries. The reason is that any ruler who wants to collect taxes must build a well-functioning bureaucracy and give the taxed something in return, in the shape of welfare reforms and some influence over how the taxes are handled, explained study author Rasmus Broms from University of Gothenburg in Sweden in an official statement. No one has ever liked having to let go of their hard-earned money. If one is to do that, one both wants to get something in return, but perhaps above all get some kind of influence over how the tax money is used, Broms said. The ruler also needs to build a well-functioning and quite a complicated machinery to collect the taxes. Historically, this has often been the initiator of a country's public administration. Both these aspects push for a more transparent and effective social system, according to Broms. To a great extent, the French and American revolutions concerned taxes, and much of what we today view as the modern state has its foundation in the systems that were built after these revolutions, Broms argued. The study also showed that in Africa, people who pay taxes are more politically interested than those who do not pay taxes. In a little longer term, it is better for a state to introduce widely collected tax bases that are noticed among the public, than to look for incomes by for example high trade tariffs, Broms said. With young workforce and continuing policy reform, India has not only emerged as the fastest-growing economy, but its stars also shine bright amid the current global gloom, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Saturday. "It's fitting we meet in India," said Lagarde in her remarks at at "Advancing Asia" summit here. "It's the world's fastest growing large economy, on the verge of having its largest, youngest ever workforce -- and, in a decade's time, set to become the world's most populous country." She also announced a training and technical assistance centre here for capacity development. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the podium, Lagarde said it was an opportune time to toast India's achievements -- and Asia's achievements -- which, she added, was a rare bright spot in this current global economic turmoil. "India stands at a crucial moment in its history -- with an unprecedented opportunity for transformation. Important reforms are underway. Think, for example, of 'Make in India' and 'Digital India'. With promise of more reforms to come, India's star shines bright." At the same time, Lagarde said, Asia remains home to two-thirds of the world's poor, many of whom live in India. To address that and also make Asia's 4.4 billion people realise their full potential, she listed six priorities: - Broadening access to services like health and finance through steps like Jan Dhan Yojana - Leveraging fiscal policy impact with instruments like conditional cash transfer programs - Empowering women with access to education, dismantling barriers - Providing amenities like water, sanitation and electricity, with better infrastructure - Greater global trade integration for more sustained growth - Tackling the challenge of climate change. India has been working on several of these initiatives, said Lagarde, like the plan for universal access to banking services by 2018. "Through the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana scheme, over 210 million previously un-banked people have opened a bank account since August 2014, with social transfers paid directly," she said, lauding the scheme. "Then with Aadhaar system, India has come up with a groundbreaking way to deliver targeted subsidies. Almost one billion people have Aadhaar numbers, and the potential to use this for delivering payments and other services -- including for women -- is tremendous." Lagarde also announced that the IMF will open a new Regional Training and Technical Assistance Center for South Asia, which will be its first fully-integrated institution and a model for future capacity development work. Indian officials said capacity development at the central and state levels in fiscal policies can enhance revenue mobilisation and help in the development of policies for more effective financial management. This is expected to help economic development and inclusive growth. It will benefit other member countries of the IMF in the region -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka -- with support from external partners like Australia and the Republic of Korea. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reiterated on Saturday that his country will counter any threat to the holy Shiite shrines in Iraq, Tasnim news agency reported. Iran has made it clear that any aggressive move against the Shiite shrines in Iraq is the red line for Tehran, Rouhani was quoted as saying. No act of aggression against the holy shrines in Iraq will be allowed, he said alluding to the possible offensives by the Islamic State militants. In June 2014, Rouhani said that "We announce to the superpowers, the mercenaries, the criminals and the terrorists that the great Iranian nation will do everything to protect Shiite holy shrines in the Iraqi cities of Karbala, Najaf, Kazemein and Samarra." Iran has announced that it would provide Iraq with military consultations that could help Iraq's army eradicate terrorism, but Iran would never directly be involved in Iraq. At least 44 Islamic State militants were killed on Saturday in air strikes and clashes with Iraqi security forces in Anbar province, a provincial security source said. The Iraqi security forces have liberated two areas near the city of Ramadi, Xinhua reported.. The troops and Sunni tribal fighters, backed by Iraqi and US-led aircraft, drove out IS militants from Abu Teiban and Al-Safiriyah, just west of Ramadi. The troops raised the Iraqi flag on a building at the scene after killing at least 24 IS militants and destroying six of their vehicles, the source said. The clashes in the two areas also left eight security members dead and five wounded, the source added. Meanwhile, an IS sniper shot dead Major Zana Khalil, commander of an army regiment, in Albu De'ij area south of the militant-seized city of Fallujah. Separately, US-led coalition and Iraqi aircraft bombarded a convoy of four vehicles carrying IS militants near the town of al-Baghdadi, destroying the four vehicles and killing at least 14 militants aboard, the source added. Moreover, Iraqi warplanes bombarded an IS headquarters in the IS-held town of Heet, killing six militants and wounding four others, he said citing intelligence reports. Government troops and allied militias have been fighting for months to retake control of key cities and towns in Anbar. Iraqi border guards on Saturday repelled an attack by Islamic State (IS) militants on an outpost near the border with Saudi Arabia in western Iraqi province of Anbar, a local security source said. The militants attacked Makr al-Nu'am border outpost with machine guns and a suicide car bomb. The border guards killed nine attackers after three hours of fierce clashes, leaving three guards dead and five others wounded, according to Xinhua. "The border outpost is under full control of the border guards after defeating the IS militants," the source said. The Iraqi border points have been facing frequent attacks by the IS groups in Iraq's largest province of Anbar, which stretches in the volatile Sunni Arab area west Baghdad to the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Come March 22 and NASA's commercial partner Orbital ATK will launch its Cygnus spacecraft into orbit atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for its fifth contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station. The flight, known as Orbital ATK CRS-6, will deliver investigations to the space station to study fire, meteors, regolith, adhesion, and 3D printing in microgravity. In the decades of research into combustion and fire processes in reduced gravity, few experiments have directly studied spacecraft fire safety under low-gravity conditions. None of these experiments have studied sample and environment sizes typical of those expected in a spacecraft fire. The "Saffire-I" investigation will provide a new way to study a realistic fire on an exploration vehicle, which has not been possible in the past because the risks for performing such studies on manned spacecraft are too high. Instruments on the returning Cygnus will measure flame growth, oxygen use and more. Results could determine microgravity flammability limits for several spacecraft materials, help to validate NASA's material selection criteria, and help scientists understand how microgravity and limited oxygen affect flame size. A less heated investigation called "Meteor Composition Determination" will enable the first space-based observations of meteors entering Earth's atmosphere from space, the US space agency said in a statement. A more "grounded" Strata-1 probe will study the properties and behaviour of regolith - the impact-shattered "soil" found on asteroids, comets, the Moon and other airless worlds. From grounded to gripping, another investigation launching takes its inspiration from small lizards. The "Gecko Gripper" investigation tests a gecko-adhesive gripping device that can stick on command in the harsh environment of space. Once adhered, the gripper can bear loads up to 20 pounds. The gripper can remain in place indefinitely and can also be easily removed and reused. From adhesion to additive, the new Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) will also be part of the cargo. Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is the process of building a part layer-by-layer, with an efficient use of the material. The facility is capable of producing parts out of a wide variety of space-rated composites, including engineered plastics. The ability to manufacture on the orbiting laboratory enables on-demand repair and production capability, as well as essential research for manufacturing on long-term missions. Days after Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti hinted at forming a government in alliance with the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir, Home Minister Rajnath Singh met state Governor N.N. Vohra here on Saturday. During the meeting, Vohra briefed Singh on the steps taken for implementation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Rs.80,000 crore special package for the state, official sources said here. There was, however, no word on whether Singh and the governor discussed government formation. The state is under Governor's Rule since Mehbooba Mufti declined to form the government in January after her father and chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed died. Addressing her party workers in the state's Kupwara town on March 7, Mehbooba Mufti said, "For me, the decision of forming an alliance with the BJP is a sacred legacy of my father." Initially, she had set a few conditions for forming an alliance government with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Rs.80,000 crore special package for Jammu and Kashmir announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 7, 2015 has components like humanitarian relief, disaster management, infrastructure and developmental spending. The CPI-M-led Left Front, while it is yet to finalise its tie up with the Congress, on Saturday extended support to the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) in the West Bengal assembly polls. While the state's ruling Trinamool Congress flayed the Left for supporting a party aligned to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the GJM which holds sway in the Darjeeling hills of north Bengal refrained from commenting. "With a view to defeat the Trinamool Congress in the three seats of Darjeeling , Kurseong and Kalimpong, we have decided to extend support to the regional party which has the sway in the region," said Communist Party of India-Marxist Darjeeling secretary Jibesh Sarkar said. He said the Front has decided not to field any candidates in three constituencies to prevent anti-Trinamool vote from getting divided. "We haven't discussed the issue within the party as of now. So we cannot comment on this," said GJM general secretary Roshan Giri. Trinamool, which has been ridiculing both the Left and the Congress over their tie-up, hit out at the Marxists. "This indicates the political bankruptcy of the CPI-M and the Left that they are now eager to support a party which is an ally of the BJP," said North Bengal Development Minister Gautam Deb. The GJM won the Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong seats in the 2011 assembly polls. Britain is set to send at least 30 more military trainers to Iraq to boost its training mission there, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said. This will bring the number of British personnel in Iraq to more than 300, BBC reported on Saturday. Fallon said there had been "solid progress" in recent months against the Islamic State terror group, which controls parts of the country. "Now is the time to step up our training of Iraqi Forces, as they prepare for operations in key cities such as Fallujah and Mosul," Fallon said. "Along with the trebling of British air strikes, this underlines the crucial role our armed forces are playing in the fight against IS." The team will provide training in logistics and include medical staff and bridge building experts. The Opposition on Saturday collectively condemned Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to grant assent to the controversial amendment to the state tree Act that de-recognises the coconut palm as a tree. "With one stroke of a signature, the governor has made herself party to the destruction of Goa's environment and identity. It is ironical, that the de-recognition of our kalpvruksha coconut palm as a tree happened when a party which professes in the cause of Hindu religion is in power," Independent opposition legislator Vijai Sardesai told a joint press conference in Panaji. The press meet was attended by other opposition legislators, including those from the Congress party. The controversial amendment to the Goa, Daman and Diu Protection of Trees Act, which de-recognises the coconut palm as a tree, was passed by the assembly in January. It was formally accorded assent by the governor earlier this week, according to chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar. The opposition and environmentalists have slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government for supporting the bill which, they say, will facilitate "mass massacre of coconut trees in the state". The legislators of the ruling coalition said the amendment would allow farmers to cut old and non productive trees without red tape. The opposition also alleged that the amendment was made to facilitate easy clearing of coconut groves, a common sight in Goa, to make way for real estate development. Green activists have been meeting Governor Sinha to apprise her of their concerns. The Congress has said that if voted to power in the 2017 assembly elections, it would accord the status of 'state tree' to the coconut palm. Over 1,000 Taiwanese people rallied in capital Taipei on Saturday against nuclear energy, calling on the government to shut down three operating nuclear plants and halt the ongoing construction of a fourth. The protest, which started in front of the Presidential Office, ended with a march to the Legislative Yuan complex, Efe news reported. "People fear the risks of nuclear power, and worry that what happened in Fukushima will also happen in Taiwan," said one observer. The Taiwan Power Company, a state-owned company that operates the three power plants, has proposed to reprocess nuclear waste overseas, a plan that has been condemned by both politicians and environmental groups as a move to extend the life span of the plant operations, scheduled to expire in 2023. The newly elected president, Ing-wen Tsai, said during her political campaign last year that she envisions a "nuclear-free homeland" by 2023. The Democratic Progress Party leader also earlier this month promoted hydrogen energy as a means to phase out nuclear power in the East Asian island nation, and has pledged to boost ties with Japan, which holds the majority of patents for hydrogen energy technology. During her campaign in September last year, Tsai estimated that the government will in upcoming years allocate 1 trillion New Taiwan dollars (US $30 billion) to the renewable energy sector. Over 100 people were killed in clashes in Yemen's Taiz city after security forces broke a rebel siege of the city, officials said on Saturday. "We announce that our forces on Friday night broke the rebel siege on southwestern areas of Taiz after beating the Shia Houthi rebels and their allies loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh," read a statement by the army and resistance unit. More than 100 fighters were killed from both sides, most of them Houthi rebels who were hit by Saudi-led air strikes, Xinhua quoted medical officials as saying. The clashes began three days ago and the forces managed to retake Almisrakh and Alakroudh districts of Taiz, recapturing the old airport and the 35th military brigade camp during the fighting on Friday and overnight, according to officials. "Now roads were secured and opened for humanitarian aid to enter the city," the army statement added. Government officials said the next round of battles would take place in the city where the republican palace, central security camp and Taiz International Airport are still under rebel control. There was no immediate official comment from the Houthi group, but pro-rebel activists said it was a "tactical withdrawal". Taiz, Yemen's third largest city located between the rebel-held capital Sanaa and the port city of Aden, is now the temporary capital after Saudi-backed loyal forces recaptured it in July 2015. The new development on the ground came as Saudi Arabia, which led an Arab coalition against the Iran-allied Houthi and Saleh forces, had reached a truce deal this week with the Houthi group to secure the shared borders between the two countries and to secure delivery of aid to the damaged areas near the Yemeni-Saudi border. The truce deal, which was mediated by Oman was implemented on the Yemeni-Saudi shared border only. Lima, March 12 (IANS/EFE) The governing Peruvian Nationalist Party on Friday withdrew from the April 10 elections, asking electoral authorities to remove from the ballot the names of all PNP candidates for national office. The request, which applies to the party's presidential ticket and congressional list, came from the PNP executive committee, led by first lady Nadine Heredia. The document was also signed by President Ollanta Humala and several PNP members of Congress. "I can confirm the presentation of the request... for the removal of the presidential ticket plus all of the parliamentary lists at the national level," PNP lawmaker Daniel Abugattas told RPP Noticias radio. He described the move as "deplorable" for its effects on PNP congressional hopefuls. The PNP presidential ticket is headed by Daniel Urresti, with Susana Villaran and Maciste Diaz as candidates for first and second vice president, respectively. The latest polls show Urresti and his running mates with support from less than 2 percent of likely voters. PNP congresswoman Ana Maria Solorzano said on Thursday that the party was weighing a possible withdrawal from the elections to avoid losing its official status, a statement that drew a vehement denial from Urresti. Under Peru's new Law of Political Organisations, a party that wins less than 5 percent of the vote is struck off the list of officially recognised parties. Villaran, a former Lima mayor, said on Friday on Twitter that she regretted the PNP's decision to renounce "the battle against the Fuji-Alanista mafia," alluding to the presidential campaigns of Keiko Fujimori -- daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori -- and Alan Garcia, a controversial two-time former head of state. Urresti, for his part, blasted unnamed "enemies" inside the PNP. In comments to RPP Noticias, he said no one in the PNP talked to him beforehand about abandoning the campaign and that he was beginning to wonder whether he had been playing "the role of the deceived spouse or that of the last to know". The surprise withdrawal of the PNP comes two days after the National Elections Board, or JNE, rejected an appeal from the candidate running second in the polls against a lower electoral court's decision to bar him from the race over supposed irregularities in how his party chose its presidential ticket. Julio Guzman's Todos por el Peru party is asking the JNE to reconsider and plans to seek a court injunction preventing election officials from excluding the candidate. The latest polls on the presidential contest show Keiko Fujimori in the lead with 34 percent, followed by Guzman with 16.6 percent. --IANS/EFE vr/ Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday expressed concern over the large number of cases pending in courts for years, saying there is a need to tackle them with speed. "It is a matter of concern that large number of cases have been pending in courts across the country," Modi said during his address at a function held here at the end of the year-long Patna High Court centenary celebrations. The prime minister also suggested that the courts should come out with an annual bulletin, mentioning the number of pending cases in them and since when. "It will help the courts, judges and lawyers to fix a target to tackle pending cases in time bound manner." Modi said the completion of a century of the Patna High Court marks the beginning of a new challenge and responsibility for the next centenary programme. Supreme Court Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and union ministers were also present on the occasion. After Patna, Modi will dedicate to the nation the rail portion of the Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge at Hajipur at a function later. It is the first visit of Modi to Bihar after the state's assembly polls in October-November in which his party Bharatiya Janata Party and allies were routed by the Grand Alliance of Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress. The prime minister, during the day-long event, will also open two newly erected rail-cum-road bridges in Patna and Munger, besides laying the foundation for an additional rail bridge across the Ganga at Mokama town in Patna, officials said. President Pranab Mukherjee had opened the centenary celebrations last April. A South African teen holidaymaker may have found a piece of debris that could be a part of the missing Malaysian airliner MH370, aviation authorities has said. The metre-long piece of metal, which had rivet holes along the edge and the number 676EB stamped on it, was found by 18-year-old Liam Lotter in December when he was walking on a beach in southern Mozambique, near the resort town of Xai Xai, authorities said on Friday. Liam believed it belonged to an aircraft and brought it back to his home in South Africa. His family, which dismissed it as a "piece of rubbish" that was probably debris from a boat, got in touch with the authorities when a suspected part of the missing airliner was found in Mozambique earlier this month. "We are arranging for collection of the part, which will then be sent to Australia as they are the ones appointed by Malaysia to identify parts found," said Kabelo Ledwaba, spokesman of the South African Civil Aviation Authority. Flight disappeared on March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. A joint search in the South Indian Ocean, where the flight presumably had ended its journey, has yet to find the wreckage. Last July, a two-metre-long aircraft flaperon was found on Reunion Island, which lies at the same corner of the Indian Ocean as Mozambique. It was confirmed two months later by French investigators as belonging to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. President Pranab Mukherjee will visit Uttar Pradesh on Sunday to inaugurate the 150th anniversary celebrations of the High Court of judicature at Allahabad, a government statement said on Saturday. The high court of judicature for the north-western provinces came into existence at Agra in Uttar Pradesh under a letters patent of March 17, 1866, the statement said. It also said that the seat of the high court was shifted from Agra to Allahabad in 1869 and its designation was altered to the high court of judicature at Allahabad by a supplementary letters patent issued on March 11, 1919. Fierce clashes erupted between pro-government forces and Al Qaeda members in Yemen's temporary capital Aden on Saturday evening, a security official said. The pro-government forces, backed by armoured vehicles and apaches of the Saudi-led coalition, launched an offensive to kick Al Qaeda members out of Aden district of Mansourah and surrounding areas, the local security official said on condition of anonymity, Xinhua reported. The Al Qaeda members mobilised their fighters and deployed snipers around Mansourah's entrances to confront the anti-terror military operation, the source said. Warplanes of the Saudi-led Arab coalition participated in the campaign and pounded the local council compound which was controlled by Al Qaeda, local residents said. According to Aden residents, fighter jets heavily hovered over the sky, breaking sound barriers while fierce fighting is still going on with loud explosions ranging out in Mansourah. Medical sources said that several people were killed or injured from both sides during Saturday's armed skirmishes in Aden. Extremists of the Al Qaeda and the Yemen-based affiliate of the Islamic State group have strong preference and influence in Aden district of Mansourah. The port city of Aden, Yemen's temporary capital, has been witnessing a state of chaos and lawlessness during past weeks, which resulted in the assassination of Aden's former governor, several high-ranking security officers and judges. The turbulent and complicated security situation in Aden and neighbouring southern provinces of Lahj and Abyan is one of the biggest challenges for the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces operating in Aden. The coalition has dispatched thousands of soldiers from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Sudan and Bahrain into five anti-Houthi southern provinces to support and train local Yemeni security forces there. Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional Al Qaeda insurgencies in the Middle East and the affiliate of the Islamic State. The security situation in the country has deteriorated since March 2015 when war broke out between Shia Houthi group, supported by former Yemeni President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government, backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition. Russia is confident about the upcoming reconciliation talks between the Syrian government and the opposition in the Swiss city of Geneva from March 14-24, the Russian deputy foreign minister said on Saturday. The Geneva peace talks, also known as Geneva III, are intended peace negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition under the protection of the UN with the aim of ending the Syrian civil war. "We have reasons for optimism as there is a common understanding within the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG)," said Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov. The ISSG is co-chaired by the US and Russia. The group is composed of the Arab League, the European Union, the UN and 17 countries. Bogdanov called for forming a united group of the Syrian opposition, only with which "direct contact between the Syrian government and the opposition could be possible". The US and Russia agreed on a plan for a ceasefire in Syria that began on February 27. The tentative truce deal has been largely observed, though violations were reported. US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in Saudi Arabia for a visit, affirmed on Saturday that the new round of intra-Syrian talks should go ahead as planned. South Korea and the US on Saturday carried out their largest-ever landing drill in the port city of Pohang. The landing drill involved 17,200 soldiers, including 12,200 American marine and navy troops, Yonhap News Agency reported. Several key US vessels, including the USS Bonhomme Richard and amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland, were a part of the Amphibious Operations (AMPHOPS), which also simulated the destruction of major enemy installations. Australia and New Zealand also participated in the drill. The two countries are among the 17 nations that are currently stationing military forces under the flag of the UN Command, which backed South Korea in the 1950-1953 Korean War that ended in an armistice but was never followed up by a definitive peace treaty. This is the first time that New Zealand has dispatched troops to Pohang, and Australia's deployment is their largest so far. The drill is a part of the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises carried out between Washington and Seoul, ongoing until the end of April. North Korea considers the operations a rehearsal for a possible invasion. Pyongyang said on Saturday it seeks to retaliate against the joint military exercises and is "waiting for the moment to punish the aggressors, keeping them within its firing range". Sri Lankan Tamil prisoners, who launched a hunger strike demanding their release, called off their fast after a minister assured them of speedy trials. As many as 13 former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres launched the hunger strike on February 23 demanding the government expedite the cases against them or release them. The prisoners called off the strike on Friday after Prisons Reforms and Rehabilitation Minister D. M. Swaminathan gave an assurance that he would discuss the issue with the attorney general's department officials, ColomboPage reported. Four inmates who fell ill due to the hunger strike were admitted to the prison hospital. Meanwhile, students at the University of Jaffna on Friday launched a one day hunger strike to protest the imprisonment of Tamils. Earlier, Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan had raised the issue in the house moving an adjournment. Sampanthan had also made an appeal to the political prisoners on fast to give it up. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj lauded Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Saturday for conveying the message of "Indian spirituality and heritage" to the world. Participating in the ongoing World Culture Festival on the second day, they said that the spiritual guru has "made all Indians proud with his work". "This is the biggest cultural event happened anywhere in the world ever... Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has made us all proud as he has conveyed the message of Indian heritage and traditions to all over the world," Singh in his address Echoing similar sentiments, Sushma Swaraj said: "India is lucky as Sri Sri was born here." "The dias of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a perfect stage of secularism. Spiritual leaders from all the faiths are here and they are giving a message of religious harmony and respecting all the beliefs," she said in her speech. "Sri Sri can have such a spiritual conclave anywhere in the world as he has followers all over the world. I have been a part of his convention at Times Square where thousands of his American followers had virtually mobbed him chanting his name," Sushma Swaraj said. Rajnath Singh also said India has taught the world about non-violence and peace. "Islam has 72 sects. We have people from all over here when even Islamist countries do not have. Christianity has six sects... we have followers from these sects while no other country has." "We had given refugee to Zorastrians when they were ousted from Iran. Even Jews have said that they have received the highest honour from this land," Singh said while elaborating about pluralistic values of Indian culture. Prominent BJP leaders including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra Chief Ministers, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh, and Devendra Fadnavis respectively also shared the dais with the spiritual guru. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was also present on the stage. The Sri Sri Ravi Shankar-led Art of Culture Foundation, the organiser of the three-day World Culture Festival, were surrounded in a controversy recently when National Green Tribunal imposed a fine of Rs.5 crore on it for violating environment laws in organising the mega-event on Yamuna flood plains. The spiritual guru denied that his foundation "violated any environment norms". The tribunal later allowed the organisers to hold the event after initially paying Rs.25 lakh of the "environment compensation" on Thursday. The Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) supported industrialist Vijay Mallya in becoming a Rajya Sabha lawmaker twice since he is from Karnataka, former prime minister and party supremo H.D. Deve Gowda said on Saturday. "As Mallya is a son of the soil (Karnataka), it is not a sin to send him to the Rajya Sabha from the state. His father (Vittal Mallya) was close to the Congress. They did not come from a foreign country," Gowda told reporters here. Mallya was elected as an independent member of Rajya Sabha in 2010 for the second term with the support of JD-S and Bharatiya Janata Party lawmakers in the state legislature. His first term was from 2002 to 2008. "Though there are over 60 other major defaulters, only Mallya's case is hogging headlines in the media. Why media is bothered about him? Is it because he is a Rajya Sabha member? Who is bothered about him otherwise," Gowda retorted to queries about the tycoon facing trouble for being a willful defaulter. Asserting that it was wrong to say Mallya had fled, Gowda said it was evident from his tweets that he did not flee from the country and was not an absconder. "Why money is not being recovered from other big defaulters. As per the tweets he posted, he is willing to cooperate with the government and judiciary to resolve the loan repayments issue," he noted. Clarifying that Mallya had to repay the loans he owes to the banks, as it was people's money, Gowda said it was up to the government to take action against Mallya. "How can I support Mallya when the central government has already initiated action against him," he quipped. Syrian armed militant groups shot down a Syrian war jet in the countryside of the central province of Hama on Saturday, the Syrian military said. The military accused the armed terrorist groups of violating the cessation of hostilities in the countryside of Hama by shooting down the war jet when it was landing near an airbase, Xinhua reported. Opposition activists, meanwhile, said the rebels downed the warplane in the northern countryside of Hama, near a military airbase under the government control. They said the warplane was striking rebel positions in the Kafar Nabodeh town in Hama countryside. They also posted an online video purporting to show the warplane while striking and later the rebels shooting it down later. The video also showed the pilot parachuting out of his falling jet. It's not immediately clear whether or not the countryside of Hama is controlled by rebels who are included in the cessation of hostilities plan, as the United Nations has excluded the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and the Islamic State from the deal. Popular Tamil character artist Selvakumar died here on Friday in a motorcycle accident. "On Friday night, Selvakumar was returning home from an event with another actor Kovai Senthil on their bike, when the brake wires got entangled in the front wheel, (and they fell) on the ground," police said. Selvakumar sustained head injury and died on the spot, while his friend suffered minor injuries. Having starred in nearly 300 films in small roles, Selvakumar is most popular for his work in "Anniyan" and "Ramanaa". He is survived by his wife and two daughters. The names of three of the Paris attackers have appeared in the Islamic State's files, the media reported. Samy Amimour, Foued Mohamed-Aggad and Omar Ismail Mostefai, the three men who carried out the attack at the Bataclan theatre where 90 people died, were featured in the files leaked from the group, BBC reported. The three attacked the Bataclan during a concert by Eagles of Death Metal. The IS files, obtained by German, British and Syrian media, have identified thousands of jihadi recruits from at least 40 countries. German officials have said that the files were genuine. Around 22,000 fighters were identified by the documents, with one file for each recruit listing name, address and other information. However, many of the names given may be duplicates. The files indicate that the three men entered IS territory in 2013 and 2014. Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere earlier said that the information contained in the files could help to prosecute IS fighters, and help prevent future recruitment. Files were first published online (documents in Arabic) by Zaman Al-Wasl, a Qatari-based Syrian news website. Dutch media identified Abu Jihad al-Hollandi from the documents as Amsterdam teenager Achraf Bouamran, who was killed in a US air strike on the Syrian IS stronghold of Raqqa in January 2015. Counter-terrorism police in Germany were studying the documents. "IS poses a severe threat... it is important for us to work together to counter this threat," British Home Secretary Theresa May said. Sky News reported that the documents came from a man called Abu Hamed, an IS fighter who said he had become disillusioned with the group's leadership and stolen a memory stick from the head of the IS internal security force before handing it over in Turkey. In its bid to take on West Bengal's "oppressive" Trinamool Congress, rights group Aakranta Aamraa on Saturday announced Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra, who was arrested for circulating emails mocking Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, will contest the coming assembly polls. The forum comprising "victims of human rights violations under the Mamata Banerjee regime", also announced the candidature of Pratima Dutta, wife of murdered green activist Tapan Dutta. While Mahapatra would contest from Behala East constituency, Pratima would in the fray from Domjur in Howrah district. Both would contest the polls as independents. The forum has sought support from all the opposition parties including the Congress, the Left Front as well as the BJP for its electoral endeavour. "The decision to contests the polls is more of an experimental venture to try sending a true peoples' representative to the assembly who will be the voice of all those who have been oppressed, tormented and attacked by the barbaric Trinamool regime," said Forum convenor Arunava Ganguly. Admitting contesting the polls was a tough task especially with "limited resources", Mahapatra said the contesting the polls was only a manifestation of the peoples' desire to see an end to the Trinamool regime. "We have sought the support of all the political parties which are opposed to the Trinamool. I am not fighting for myself but for the people of this state none of whom are safe under this regime," said Mahapatra who was arrested in 2012. He along with a neighbour were put behind bars for circulating a collage of photographs of Banerjee and party leader Mukul Roy with some dialogues of Satyajit Ray's detective masterpiece "Sonar Kella", showing the duo discussing how to get rid of party leader Dinesh Trivedi, who was forced by the chief minister to give up the railways portfolio. Dutta, who has been fighting for justice after her husband Tapan was shot dead in 2011 for opposing the filling of a wetland in Bally in Howrah, said the motive for her to contest the polls is to "unmask the criminal-politician nexus". Former Supreme Court judge and vehement Banerjee critic A.K. Ganguly extended his support to the twin candidates. "From democracy to secularism, from police to the common people, none are safe under this barbaric regime which has no respect for law or for the people. The need is for the opposition parties and democracy loving people to unite and prevent this undemocratic party (Trinamool) from coming to power again," he said. Around 600 troopers of Tripura State Rifles (TSR) would be deployed in West Bengal and Assam to facilitate peaceful assembly elections in the two states, an official said here on Saturday. "The TSR troopers would provide security cover first during the assembly polls in Assam. From Assam, they would move to West Bengal," Inspector General of Police (Law and Order) Anurag told IANS. "Around 600 (six companies) TSR jawans, led by senior officials, would be posted in Assam by March 28. After the completion of two-phase elections in Assam, they would be deployed in West Bengal," he said. He said the union home ministry has asked the Tripura government to send the TSR troopers to Assam and Bengal as part of the central forces. The troopers would be posted in the last five phases of elections in West Bengal, where there would be a month-long voting process for the 294-member assembly in seven phases beginning April 4 and ending May 5. A large number of central forces have already been deployed in different parts of election-bound West Bengal. "West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was averse...to use the TSR during previous elections two years back since the TSR jawans are from Left-ruled Tripura," a TSR official, who accompanied the troopers that time, said while refusing to disclose his identity. Besides providing security during the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, the India Reserve (IR) battalions of TSR were earlier sent to Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Nagaland and Mizoram to provide security during various elections in the states. The elite TSR battalions, trained for counter-insurgency operations, were constituted in March 1984 to deal with terrorism. Seventy five percent of its personnel are from Tripura while the remaining come from across the country. Two ex-servicemen working as private security guards were killed during indiscriminate firing after a heated argument among some people at a liquor party at a councillor's office here, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday (after midnight) in west Delhi's Najafgarh area at the Indian National Lok Dal councillor Kishan Pehlwan's office. The deceased have been identified as Ashok Kumar, 40, and Fauzi, 42, -- both private security guards of a financier and a property dealer of the area. Police said Kumar died on the spot while Fauzi succumbed to his bullet injury at a private hospital. Deputy Commissioner of Police R.A. Sanjeev told IANS that the deceased were celebrating at a party at Kishan Pehlwan's office. Pehlwan, considered as one of the most notorious gangsters in the capital for a decade, is a sitting councillor of the area. He is the brother of former Najafgarh legislator Bharat Singh, who was killed last year. "Four-five other people residing at Kishan Pehlwan's office were also involved in the party. A heated argument ensued among them over some issue after they consumed alcohol. Some of them started firing indiscriminately and the two received bullet injuries," the DCP told IANS. We have scrutinized the CCTV footage of the incident and questioned the other people involved in the party, the officer said: "The reason behind the firing would come to light soon." Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi why beleaguered business tycoon Vijay Mallya was allowed to leave India. "Since CBI directly reports to Prime Minister, Modi owes an answer why Mallya was allowed to leave India. Central Bureau of Investigation couldn't have allowed without approval from top," Kejriwal tweeted. Mallya left the country on March 2, days before a group of creditor-banks led by the State Bank of India moved the Supreme Court to restrain him from leaving India. A consortium of 17 banks led by the State Bank of India wants the liquor baron to be arrested for not repaying about Rs.9,000 crore he had borrowed. The United Breweries group chairman has said that he "respects and will comply with the law of the land". On March 12, the Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, paving the way for giving legal status to Aadhaar, a 12-digit unique identification number generated after collecting biometric and other details of an Indian resident. The government intends to use Aadhaar to roll out more subsidy schemes and allay privacy concerns. However, activists are not convinced. Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru based-research organisation The Centre for Internet & Society, tells Sahil Makkar that the concept of Aadhaar is principally flawed and it doesn't substantially help in plugging leakages in government schemes. Edited excerpts: What is your position on Aadhaar and the UIDAI Bill? What technology has broken cannot be fixed by the law. Aadhaar is a broken technology; it is surveillance technology disguised as developmental intervention that identifies people without their consent and authenticates transactions on their behalf. The architecture is a disaster from the security perspective and there is no recourse in law for citizens whose rights have been infringed. The other objection should be to the subtitle of the Bill that mentions "services": it is unclear whether Aadhaar is to be provided to the residents or the citizens. A bulk of the government services is meant for citizens. Sonia Gandhi (Raebareli MP): Madam Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak on this important day - International Women's Day. I also convey my good wishes to you, my good wishes to all my friends, women members of Parliament, all the women of India and all the women of the world. Our history is full of examples of women playing central and important roles in all years of their lives. Discontent brewing among sections of leaders and workers in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam over its choice of alliance partners threatens to hamper its prospects in the state's Assembly polls next month. Last week, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Shimla to travel onwards to her summer cottage in Charabara. A team of architects and interior decorators accompanied her. The cottage has been in various stages of construction since 2008. What's interesting is that local Congress leaders had no information about her visit, so there were no garlands, coconuts or flowers to welcome her. In July 2015, while describing Rahul Gandhi as a man of the masses (zameeni neta) Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had asked for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to play a more active role in politics. Since then, there has been one yagya in Lucknow, one Facebook post by the Maharashtra unit of the party welcoming her entry into Uttar Pradesh politics and sundry other plaints to her mother, pleading for an active political role for her. The corporate world has witnessed continued pressure for professionalisation of boards in the interests of better governance. Accordingly, the governance structure of corporations is increasingly getting aligned with the best practices in corporate governance. Good corporate governance ensures transparency, integrity, responsibility, accountability and long-term strategic plans, effective risk management plans and corporate social responsibility, or CSR. The term corporate governance has acquired special significance in the case of India's public sector enterprises (PSEs). Around 1.5 lakh civil and revenue were Saturday settled in the Lok Adalats held at all levels from the taluk courts to the High Courts across the country. The Lok Adalat, organised by the Legal Services Authority (NALSA) along with the respective State Legal Services Authorities, dealt with 47,000 pending and 1.06 lakh pre-litigation matters. NALSA in press release said that Saturday's total value of settlement reached was around Rs 100 crore. "As per the figures received till 4.30 pm, around 1.53 lakh have been settled, out of which 47 thousand are pending matters and 1.06 lakh are pre-litigation matters. The total value of settlement reached today is around Rs 100 crores," it said. NALSA added that the National Lok Adalat has benefitted the common man and has been achieved not only because of the Legal Services Authorities/Committees but also because of the cooperation extended by the Judges, Lawyers and other concerned authorities. The National Lok Adalat was organized Saturday under the patronage of Chief Justice of India T S Thakur, and Justice Anil R Dave, who is also the Executive Chairman of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) across the nation (excluding Bihar and Madhya Pradesh) in all courts at all levels from the Taluk Courts to the Districts Courts and High Courts. At least 12 Al-Qaeda fighters and two policemen were killed in fighting on the ground and coalition air strikes on second city Aden, security sources have said. Fighter jets and Apache helicopters from the Saudi-led coalition carried out four air strikes in support of the security forces, they said. Clashes in the port city's Mansura residential district continued late yesterday after breaking out in the late afternoon after security forces set up new checkpoints, they added. Dozens of gunmen in balaclavas carrying the Al-Qaeda flag deployed to push back police trying to enter the neighbourhood, witnesses said. The police said in a statement that fighting against the "armed terrorist gangs in Mansura will continue to ensure the safety of residents" in the internationally recognised government's temporary capital. The air strikes -- which started after jihadists shot at an Apache helicopter -- hit a municipal office and a jihadist arms depot, witnesses said. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have taken advantage of the conflict between the Huthi insurgents and pro-government forces to reinforce their presence in the south, including in Aden. Meanwhile, pro-government forces yesterday pressed their offensive aimed at breaking the rebels' months-long siege of the southwestern city of Taez, military sources said. Fighting raged north and east of the city, they said, a day after loyalists pushed the Iran-backed Huthis out of its western and southern suburbs. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi managed to "retake important positions" in a northern suburb where heavy clashes continued, one source said. But retaking the eastern part will be more difficult, the source said, as this is held by the Republican Guard, an elite army unit loyal to former president and Huthi ally Ali Abdullah Saleh. The rebels and their allies have been attacking residential neighbourhoods of Taez from this area, which includes an airport, an industrial zone and the headquarters of the special forces, the source added, without giving a death toll. Loyalists yesterday morning pushed back rebels trying to retake the headquarters of the army's 35th brigade in the western suburbs, sources said. Loyalists last summer retook five southern provinces including Aden and have for months been fighting to win back Taez. Two constables of Delhi police were arrested for allegedly blackmailing traffic policemen of NCR region after trapping them with bribe offer and making videos of the act, police said. Om Prakash and Neeraj Kumar were arrested yesterday in Civil Lines area for blackmailing traffic policemen, Hawa Singh, CPRO, Gurgaon police said. The accused would deliberately travel in vehicles without registration numbers, jumped traffic signals, travel without helmets to draw the attention of the traffic police, Singh said. While one of them would negotiate with the traffic policemen and offer bribe, the other would secretly film them and make a video of the policemen accepting the money, he said. The accused would take the mobile numbers of the traffic police and send "edited" videos via WhatsApp to blackmail them, Singh said. A case has been registered under relevant sections of IPC, Singh said, adding, the accused were produced in a local court which sent them to 14-day judicial custody. Delhi police have been informed about the arrest and investigations are on in the matter, Singh said. Two persons were allegedly shot dead by a 29-year-old man during a party at the farmhouse of former councillor Krishan Pehelwan in southwest Delhi's Najafgarh area, police said today. The deceased persons have been identified as Ashok Kumar, a former BSF personnel, and Fauji. Both worked as personal security officers (PSO) for two different property dealers in southwest Delhi. The two were guests at a party last night at Pehelwan's farmhouse, where the former councillor's PSO lives, said a senior police official. All guests in the party were drunk when a heated argument broke out among them, during which one Joginder, also a PSO, pulled out a gun and allegedly fired at Kumar and Fauji. "At 11.40 PM, the police received a call from a private hospital informing that two persons with bullet injuries were brought there. While one was dead, the other was in a critical state then," DCP (Southwest) R A Sanjeev said, adding that the second man succumbed to his injury at the hospital. A police team was rushed there and during the initial phase of the investigation, it appeared that both the victims worked as PSO for Pehelwan. Further investigation revealed their identities and that of the property dealers they worked for. When people were questioned, the sequence of events became clear and the accused, Joginder, a resident of Bahadurgarh in Haryana, was arrested for murder, police added. The police maintained that this incident had nothing to do with any gang-war and Pehelwan, who was not prsent at the time of the incident, was not a target. In March last year, Pehelwan's brother Bharat Singh, who was a former MLA, was shot dead by assailants, an incident which was fallout of an old gangwar in the area. While deceased Ashok Kumar, who had taken voluntary retirement from BSF, was a native of UP's Etah, details about Fauji were being ascertained. Three Indian students were killed today when the car they were travelling in collided with another vehicle in the UAE's Sharjah city. The incident took place on Al Dhaid-Al Madam Road in Sharjah in the wee hours today. Ashmid Ashraf, Muhammad Shifam and Mohammad Shounoub were returning to Dubai after a short holiday when they met with the accident. All the three students were from Kerala, Gulf reported. The three students were killed on the spot. The driver of the other vehicle in the accident was injured and admitted to a nearby hospital. Colonel Haran Mubark Al Jazai, acting police director of Eastern Region, said the vehicle carrying the students caused the accident. He said the student's vehicle entered the road from a prohibited area and collided with another vehicle which was travelling on its path. Ashraf from Kozhikode and Shifam from Kannur were studying at Middlesex University in Dubai. Shounoub was also from Kozhikode, the report said. The Kerala Muslim Cultural Community is making efforts to get the bodies released for repatriation to Kerala, it said. "Middlesex University Dubai students and staff mourn the loss of our students Ashmid Ashraf, Muhammad Shifam and their friend Mohammad Shounoub in a tragic accident. Our deepest sympathies and condolences to their families," the university said in a statement. At least seven persons were killed and 48 others trapped when a coal mine collapsed in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of Orakzai Agency today. According to rescue sources, 65 labourers were inside the mine when it collapsed due to torrential rains. Rescue operation was under way. Seven labourers were killed in the accident. Ten injured miners have been rescued and shifted to hospitals, Samaa TV reported. Apollo Hospitals today said it has completed acquisition of majority stake in Guwahati-based Assam Hospitals. "We have now completed the acquisition of a 51 per cent majority stake in Assam Hospitals, Guwahati," Apollo Hospitals Enterprise said in a regulatory filing. The Chennai-based health care major had last year announced to acquire a majority stake in Assam Hospitals for a cash consideration of up to Rs 57.25 crore. "The objective of the acquisition is to strengthen Apollo Hospitals' leadership position in the hospital space as well as enhance its presence in the North Eastern region where it already has a strong brand equity," Apollo Hospitals said. Assam Hospitals was incorporated in 1997 and commenced operations in 1999. It currently runs a 220 bed hospital facility. It recorded a turnover of Rs 83.1 crore for the year ended March 2015. An army jawan from Haryana was today found dead under suspicious circumstances inside a barrack in Karnah sector of Kupwara district in north Kashmir, police said. Sepoy Pankaj Kumar, posted with 165 field regiment, was found unconscious in his barrack at Batpora village in Tangdhar area in the wee hours today, a police officer said. He said the jawan was taken to a nearby army hospital where he was declared brought dead. The body of Kumar was handed over to the unit concerned, the officer said, adding, police has started inquest proceedings to ascertain the cause of death. An Army jawan was killed and two of his colleagues were injured when they were struck by lightning in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir last night. The soldiers were on duty near the Ditch-Cum-Bund (DCB) on Abtal road in the Ramgarh sector when the lightning struck them, a police officer said today. Sepoy Jai Paul of Himachal Pradesh died on the spot while the injured have been identified as Naik Raj Kumar of Kathua district and Naik Anil Kumar of Pathankot. The Ministry Saturday rejected as "fabricated and mischievous misinformation" a purported RTI reply that had claimed that the government does not recruit Muslims in the ministry as a policy. The Ministry condemned the "misreporting" which it claimed was aimed at causing "chasm" between different sections of society and promoting disharmony and mistrust with ulterior motives. "The Ministry of has noted with anguish certain mischievous misinformation being spread in certain section of media and social media quoting a reply to an RTI by mentioning a fabricated draft as Annexure I to that letter, which has never been issued by the Ministry of or any of its agencies," the Ministry said in a statement "The Ministry strongly condemns this piece of misreporting, clearly aimed at causing chasm between different sections of society and promoting disharmony and mistrust with ulterior motives," it added. The Ministry's response came in response to a series of RTI applications by a journalist who had sought the number of Muslim yoga teachers and trainers hired for foreign assignments during the first World Yoga Day on June 21 last year. "As per government policy: no Muslim candidate was invited, selected or sent abroad," the reply was quoted as saying. The ministry Saturday said that an RTI request dated September 17, 2015 was received from Pushp Sharma which sought information about various issues including how many times yoga councils were formulated in last ten years, detail list of each council, name of Yoga council members who got selected, how many Muslim candidates were invited, selected or sent abroad as Yoga trainer, amongst others. The Ministry said that on receipt of the query, it forwarded this RTI request to its three agencies namely Morarji Desai Institute of Yoga, Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy and International Cooperation wing of the Ministry. "This is a simple forwarding letter under section 6(3) of RTI Act and therefore does not contain any reply to the queries. "The same forwarding letter of the Ministry has been used by a section of the media in this matter, but with a non-existent, fictitious "ANNEXURE- I", (which has never been issued by the Ministry)," it said. The Ministry had successfully conducted the first International Day of Yoga on June 21 last year which witnessed the participation of more than 30,000 participants and created Guinness World record. The Ministry further said that the contents regarding religion based data in the so-called Annexure- I are not only "fabricated but factually incorrect" as well. "The response of the International Cooperation Section of the Ministry clearly said that invitations were sent to yoga experts and enthusiasts without reference to their religions. Replies sent to the applicant by MDNIY, CCRYN are also enclosed for ready reference. The Ministry is initiating appropriate action in the matter," it said. Following the controversy, a petition was filed with Commission of Minorities (NCM), Prime Minister and President by Shehzad Poonawala against "discriminatory" policy adopted by AYUSH Ministry. Poonawala urged the NCM to direct the government to immediately withdraw this "discriminatory and unreasonable" policy against Muslims which is thoroughly "violative" of the Constitution and should have never been introduced at all. "NCM should monitor and review periodically the policies of the government to ensure they are not discriminatory against any religious minorities and live up to the slogan of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas in letter and spirit," Poonawala had said in the petition. "PM Modi must take cognizance of communal incidents being done by certain elements who have now entered mainstream. It is time to make stringent rules against his kind of communal assault targeting Muslims. The President must advise the government to take necessary corrective measures," Poonwala added. Government and RBI were today on the same page cautioning against overstating bad loan crisis in banks lest it hampers the lending operations, while markets regulator Sebi barred wilful defaulters from raising public funds and taking control of listed firms, as a controversy raged over massive default by Vijay Mallya. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan made it clear that misdemeanors and criminal action cannot go unpunished. The two were speaking to the media after Reserve Bank's Board Meeting here attended by the Finance Minister as a post Budget tradition in which they discussed the need to clean up the banks balance sheets. "We don't want to create a situation where we overstate the crisis and in the process, the whole activity of lending for growth itself starts suffering because people become extraordinarily defensive. We don't want to reach that situation. "So its that limited category where there is some kind of a prima facie misconduct or misdemeanor, which has taken place by the individual. Its those areas which will be looked into differently," Jaitley said. Echoing similar views, Rajan said there is a need to be "careful" going forward, so that criminal actions are penalised, but there is no "broad fishing expedition which then becomes a reason for banks to get worried about making loans which then hamper the recovery and hamper the absolutely important infrastructure investment that have to take place". "So as a country, as a system, we have to draw that balance very carefully and we are hopeful that we can manage that," he said. The gross Non Performing Assets (NPAs) of the public sector banks (PSBs) increased from 5.43 per cent as on March 2015 to 7.30 per cent as on December 2015. Gross NPAs of PSBs increased from Rs 2,67,065 lakh crore in March to Rs 3,61,731 lakh crore in December. On the same day, markets regulator Sebi, whose board was also addressed separately by Jaitley today, announced a multi-pronged clampdown on 'wilful loan defaulters', by barring them from raising public funds, as also from taking control of listed firms and holding board positions -- a move that would disqualify beleaguered Mallya from various posts. Besides, such defaulters -- including individuals and the companies as well as their promoters and directors -- would be debarred from setting up or being associated with the market entities like mutual funds and brokerage firms. Sebi is also mulling making it mandatory for listed companies to disclose their bad loans if they breach certain thresholds set by the banking sector regulator RBI. Sebi Chairman U K Sinha also announced measures to enhance surveillance actions in the marketplace and to check financial frauds, including by making it mandatory for listed firms to disclose impact of lapses flagged by the auditors. The measures to choke funding avenues for wilful loan defaulters assume significance in the wake of a raging controversy over UB Group Chairman Mallya, who has left the country amid continuing efforts by banks to recover dues totalling over Rs 9,000 crore of unpaid loans and interest. Mallya recently resigned as Chairman and Director of United Spirits Ltd as part of a sweetheart deal with the company's new owner Diageo -- a deal which itself is under Sebi's scanner. He, however, remains on board of various other companies including of his UB Group as also a few others including Indian subsidiaries of some multinational firms. Sebi Chairman said the new rules on restraining wilful defaulters would come into effect immediately after they get notified and would apply to all listed firms, as also to their promoters and directors. While refusing to comment on any individual, Sinha said the new rules are likely to be notified within a few weeks. These restrictions would apply to every individual and company declared as wilful defaulter as per RBI norms. "If somebody is declared by RBI, or by other orders, that he is a wilful defaulter, then it is very risky to allow that person, or company to raise money from retail persons in the market," Sinha said. "They will not be allowed to raise money from the market. They will also be debarred from taking any position in a listed company. Such persons will also be declared not fit and proper under various intermediary regulations," he added. An individual or a company is declared 'wilful defaulter' for deliberate non-payment of the dues despite adequate cash flow and good net worth and for siphoning off funds to the detriment of the defaulting unit, among other factors. RBI had approached Sebi to put curbs on fund-raising activities of wilful defaulters, after which the capital markets regulator also started a public consultation process. The decision follows discussions between various regulators and government departments to tighten the regulatory noose on wilful defaulters, especially in the wake of many such cases coming to fore in recent months. Sebi said any company or its promoters and directors categorised as wilful defaulters would not be allowed to take control over other listed entity. However, if a listed company or its promoters or directors are categorised as wilful defaulter, and there is a takeover offer in respect of that listed company, they may be allowed to make competing offer, the regulator added. Brazil's largest political party has said it will take 30 days to decide whether to break with President Dilma Rousseff as she faces an impeachment battle. Calls within the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party to ditch the leftist leader's coalition have been growing as Rousseff faces a bruising recession, a spiraling corruption scandal and a probe of alleged electoral violations, as well as possible impeachment. The huge centrist party, known as the PMDB, is seen as a kingmaker in Brazil, and losing its backing would be a devastating blow for the country's first woman president. PMDB lawmaker Osmar Terra, one of the leaders of the movement to break with Rousseff and her Workers' Party (PT), said the president has "lost control" of Latin America's largest country, which is stuck in what may be a record recession even as it prepares to host the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August. "The government has made bad decisions. It is sinking. The PMDB cannot sink with it," Terra told AFP. "The PT and the government are over." The decision was taken at the PMDB's national convention in Brasilia, which came ahead of nationwide protests Sunday calling for Rousseff's impeachment. There was vocal hostility to Rousseff at the convention, with many members shouting "Down with Dilma!" in between speeches. Party leaders said that during the 30-day period, PMDB members will be barred from accepting positions in Rousseff's administration to prevent her from interfering in the final decision. Among the issues at stake in the internal debate is whether PMDB lawmakers will be free to decide how to vote if Congress opens impeachment proceedings against the president. The party also re-elected as its leader Vice President Michel Temer, the man who would take over as president if Rousseff is forced out. Temer sought to downplay the calls for a break, though he also played to the anti-Rousseff crowd. "We can't ignore the fact that the country is going through an extremely serious political and economic crisis. But this is not the time to divide Brazilians," he said. Congress is mulling impeachment over allegations Rousseff fudged the government's accounts to boost public spending during her 2014 re-election campaign and hide the magnitude of the recession racking the once-booming South American giant. The Supreme Court is due to rule Wednesday on whether impeachment proceedings can go forward. Meanwhile, the Supreme Electoral Court is considering a case that could result in judges invalidating Rousseff's re-election. Nadeem Rasul, an alleged 'sharp-shooter' who worked for the fugitive gangster Chhota Shakeel, was arrested here today in a joint operation by Mumbai and Vadodara police. Joint Police Commissioner D J Patel told PTI that a case under section 307 of IPC (attempt to murder) was registered against Rasul in Mumbai. A Mumbai police team came to Vadodara after receiving a tip-off about his whereabouts. He was arrested from Tandalja locality of the city. China has lodged a protest with the UN for inviting the Dalai Lama to its conference in Geneva saying that the Tibetan spiritual leader is a separatist and not entitled to talk about human rights. China voiced"strong unsatisfaction"and lodged solemn representations after the Dalai Lama was invited to attend an activity on the sidelines of the ongoing UN human rights meeting. Reports said the US and Canada co-sponsored a conference built around Nobel peace prize winners, on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council's 31st session in Geneva, official media reported. The Dalai Lama was invited for the conference, which was chaired by UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore. The US side insisted on inviting the Dalai Lama to attend the activity regardless of China' s firm opposition, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei said in a statement. The relevant UN department also violated the UN resolution and allowed the deputy high commissioner to chair the activity. "We have lodged solemn representations to relevant parties," he said. Hong said the Dalai Lama is a political exile who has long been engaged in activities to split China instead of a simple religious person. "Dalai Lama, the biggest serf owner in old Tibet, is not entitled to talk about human rights", he said. He said that China firmly opposed the Dalai Lama to visit any country with any identity or in any name. China was also against officials from any country to have contact with the Dalai Lama in any form. He urged relevant countries to abide by their commitment on the Tibet issue, stop making use of the issue to interfere China's domestic affairs, and maintain the healthy development of bilateral relations with concrete actions. He also demanded relevant department of the United Nations to adhere to the purpose and principles of the UN Charter, and respect and support the efforts made by UN member states to safeguard their sovereignty and territorial integrity. A civilian was injured when a hand grenade exploded at Hatta Golapati in Imphal late tonight, police said. Unidentified persons lobbed the hand grenade at an oil pump, according to a police officer. The injured was immediately rushed to a private clinic and discharged after being given first aid by the medical staff, the officer said. The heavily populated area with a large number of security presence in its vicinity is known for illegal selling of drugs. Extortion is likely to be the motive behind the attack, the officer said. Chief Justice of India T S Thakur today inaugurated the "Centre for Information Technology" of Allahabad High Court, where digitisation of court records running into crores of pages will take place. The structure is spread over an area of 20,000 square feet with the capacity to store about 30 lakh files. The CJI arrived here this afternoon from Patna and also inaugurated a website dedicated to the year-long celebrations of the sesquicentennial of Allahabad High Court, which will formally commence tomorrow with a function which will be attended, among others, by President Pranab Mukherjee, Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. In addition to the CJI, several judges of the Supreme Court, Chief Justices of several High Courts and a number of retired judges have arrived in the city to take part in tomorrow's function. Elaborate security arrangements are in place around the sprawling High Court premises where vehicular traffic has been suspended since this morning and the restrictions are likely to remain in place till tomorrow evening. Hundreds of CCTV cameras have been installed around the court campus where police personnel, assisted by paramilitary forces, are keeping a round-the-clock vigil. Undeterred by the traffic restrictions and security arrangements, locals have been turning up in large numbers for the past couple of days to catch a glimpse of the glittering illumination that is on display at the High Court every evening. The highest judicial body of Uttar Pradesh had come into being on March 17, 1866. Known at that time as the High Court of Judicature for the North-Western Provinces, it was initially set up at Agra from where it was shifted to Allahabad in 1869. Fifty years later, the nomenclature was altered to High Court of Judicature at Allahabad vide a supplementary Letters Patent dated March 11, 1919. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today highlighted the important role played by the judiciary in establishing the rule of law in Bihar and said the state governement has "accorded priority" to works related to judiciary. He was speaking after the inauguration of the new building of the Bihar Judicial Academy here. Chief Justice of India T S Thakur inaugurated the new building for training of judicial officials. "Judiciary played an important role in establishment of rule of law in Bihar," Kumar said. He said work was being done for strengthening the judicial process in the state. Today out of 38 districts 37 of them have courts, he said. The chief minister said despite limited resources, the state government has accorded priority to works related to the field of judiciary. The Chief Justice of India praised the excellent construction of the new judial academy building. He said Bihar is a big state which needs more such academies. He appreciated the Bihar government's assistance in strengthening judicial system in the state. Supreme Court judges Deepak Mishra, Justice F M Ibrahim Khalifullah and Justice Shivkirti Singh and Acting Chief Justice of the Patna High Court Iqbal Ahmad Ansari were also present on the occasion. Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar today said the government's commitment to sustainable development is full and final. Climate change is a reality with one degree rise in temperature caused by 150 years of uncontrolled carbon emission by the developed world, Javadekar said at the 11th National Convention on Sustainable Development Goals here. While 30 per cent of cumulative contribution was that of the United States, Europe, Canada and other developed countries accounted for 50 per cent and China 10 per cent, whereas India was responsible for only 3 per cent carbon emission, he said. The developed world went ahead with business as usual scenario without bothering about environmental impact. Now it has happened, and we are suffering," he said. On Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision on climate change, Javadekar said though India is not part of the problem, it wants to be part of the solution. India being well-aware of its responsibilities was committed to UN Goals on sustainable development, he said. Our commitment is reflected in every programme being pursued by the government, he said. He listed out Government's ambitious 175 Giga Watt renewable energy programme, covering solar, wind, hydro-power and nuclear energy as a major step in promoting environment friendly development. India had taken pro-active measures to discourage use of fossil fuels in a bid to reduce carbon foot print, he said. The Union Budget 2016-17 has levied a green cess of $6 (Rs 400) per tonne of coal. This is perhaps the highest levy in the world, as even the United States taxes coal at around $1. If the developed world followed Indias example and levied higher taxes on coal, billions of dollars would accrue to pursue clean energy programmes, Javadekar said. Javadekar lauded the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, under which 5 crore rural poor households will be given free LPG connections. "As the programme rolls out, every day 5,000 new homes will not be cutting down trees for firewood. This will be besides the health benefits for the women who cook," he said. The minister also listed out plans to control vehicular pollution by moving to Bharat VI emission norms, policies on waste management and massive tree plantation drive through the Compensatory Afforestaton Fund Bill 2015 as other measures aimed at sustainable development. Environmental clearance should not be a roadblock for development, he said. "While every effort should be made to ensure safeguard of the environment, development projects should not suffer due to delay," he said. "In the last 20 months, my ministry has given environmental clearance to 900 projects entailing an investment of about Rs 6 lakh crore," he said. While the 10 year average time for according environmental clearance was 600 days, his ministry has brought down to 190 days with a plant to reduce it further to 100 days. On the Mumbai Metro Car Shed at Aarey Colony controversy, Javadekar said there are sustainable solutions available to address the issue. "The technology is now available to replant grown up trees through mechanised uprooting and replanting them at an alternative site. Delhi Metro is a standing example in this regards, where for every one tree cut, five more trees were planted," the minister said. Maharashtra Industry Minister Subhash Desai said the prolonged drought, scanty rainfall, water scarcity and hailstorm in Maharashtra are serious wake up calls of climate change. The 'Jalyukta Siva' water recharge programme being implemented by the Maharashtra Government was a true example of sustainable development, Desai said and called upon the industry leaders to support it through their CSR initiatives. Terming the AAP Government's decision to cancel the examination for the Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board for grade 2 candidates, as a "gross injustice" to the genuine successful candidates, Delhi Congress today sought a thorough probe into the whole issue. In a letter to Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, DPCC president Ajay Maken said, "in case of any irregularity, severe punishment should be meted out to those found guilty, but the genuinely successful candidates should not be penalised." He also sought LG's intervention in the matter so as to ensure that the genuine candidates are not meted out "injustice". Maken wrote to the LG after a large number of candidates who appeared for the exams met him today. Addressing a press conference at the DPCC office, chief spokesperson Sharmistha Mukherjee said the guilty, whether they are officials or candidates, should be punished but at the same time the innocent should not be made to suffer, either. She demanded that the vigilance report about the DSSSB exam results should be made public as the case involves the future of young people. "It was the duty of the Government to ensure proper conduct of the exams, and if there was any discrepancy in the exam process, then the AAP Government in Delhi and the BJP-led Central Government should be held responsible," she said. Delhi Government cancelling the whole examination, alleging discrepancies in the examination, Mukherjee said was very unfair to the genuine successful candidates, and wanted to know on what basis the examination has been cancelled. She reiterated the Congress party's demand that the vigilance report should be put in the public domain to bring out the truth. Congress in Tamil Nadu today termed as "wrong" the DMDK chief Vijayakanth's decision to fight the Assembly election all alone. "My friend Vijayakanth has taken a decision contrary to the expectations of the people and his party cadres. It is a wrong decision. After the outcome of election results he will realise that it was a wrong decision," state Congress Committee President E V K S Elangovan told reporters. DMDK had earlier called itself the "real alternative" to both AIADMK and DMK and declared that it would go it alone in the polls. Congress and DMK had last month forged an alliance to face the Assembly election together in Tamil Nadu. Answering a question, Elangovan said talks were on with some political parties for a tie-up for the elections and such outfits have been asked to get in touch with the DMK leadership. "I refuse to comment on it," Elangovan said when asked to comment on the Supreme Court commuting to life imprisonment, the capital punishment awarded to three persons in the case relating to burning to death of three college girls in Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu in 2000 following the conviction of AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa, who was then in the opposition. He, however, added that the "curse of the kin of those killed in that incident will trounce AIADMK in this election." Three girl students of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore - Kokilavani, Gayathri and Hemalatha - died in the year 2000 after the bus they were travelling in was torched by the three men, who were later convicted in the case. Opposition Congress today boycotted the all-party meeting convened by Haryana's BJP government on Jat reservation and Satluj Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal issues. "We decided to boycott today's meeting...We have sought a judicial commission of inquiry to probe the violence during Jat stir and imposition of President's rule in the state. We will also meet Haryana Governor in this regard," state Congress chief Ashok Tanwar said. "We have sought dismissal of the BJP Government on Jat issue for its failure to check the large scale violence and arson in the state which claimed 30 lives and caused massive damage to property," he said. "Whatever happened during the Jat stir, Haryana suffered a huge loss and the state's image also took a hit," Tanwar said, adding, "When all this was happening, the BJP government played mute spectator. They have no moral right to rule and the government must be dismissed." The state Congress chief claimed that today's meeting is just an eye-wash as the BJP government's intentions were not clear right from the beginning of the Jat stir. He said Congress also believes that BJP is befooling people on SYL canal issue as it is in alliance with the ruling SAD in Punjab and at Centre. "BJP can find a solution to the SYL canal issue if it wants to serve the interest of Haryana. But, it is only befooling the people of the state with an eye on Punjab polls next year by making it a political issue," Tanwar alleged. He claimed that Khattar government did not have the intent to invite Congress and said there was "no proper invite". "Some letter came, there was no signature of the Chief Minister on that," he said. Haryana's Congress Legislature Party leader Kiran Choudhry, said the state government should put pressure on the SAD-BJP government in Punjab not to go ahead with the Punjab Satluj Yamuna Link Canal (Rehabilitation and Re-vesting of Proprietary Rights) Bill, 2016'. "If Punjab goes ahead with passing the Bill, SYL will be dead forever. Then how will Haryana gets its water share," she said, adding, "The Haryana government should exert full pressure on Punjab and Centre over on this." The neighbouring Punjab is set to bring the Bill during the ongoing session of its Assembly, which seeks to give back proprietary rights to the land owners from whom 5,376 acres were acquired for the SYL canal in 1977. At the all-party meeting, the second in a span of three weeks with the first being held on February 19, the Haryana government will seek suggestion on the developments taking place in view of Punjab's proposed Bill on SYL issue. It will also seek suggestions on the Jat reservation Bill which will be brought in during the Budget session of the Assembly beginning from March 14. Chief Minister Khattar had proposed that a member from every opposition party help government draft the Bill. On the heels of the government announcing a slew of reforms in the oil and gas sector, state-run explorer Saturday said it will finalise "a multi-billion dollar investment plan" for the 98/2 fields of D5 Block in the KG Basin by the month-end or early April. The D5 Blocks will be the second largest oil and gas fields for both and in the country, with the largest being the Bombay High oil fields and the Bhasin gas fields. "We will finalise a multi-billion dollar investment for our 98/2 fields in D5 Block in the KG Basin by the end of the month or early next month. I cannot divulge exact quantum of the investment, but I can assure you that it will be in multi-billion dollars," chairman and managing director S K Sarraf said. This will be the largest investment in a single field by ONGC in its over six decades of existence, he said. When asked for an approximate investment amount, the chairman refused to quantify, saying, "we are yet to finalise the details. But it will be in multiple billions". Company sources, however, said that "going by the size of the fields and ultra-deep water drilling involved, it should be anywhere over $4 billion over the next three years when we will commission the project". Sarraf said on completion of the development by end 2019, the 98/2 fields in the D5 Block in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) Basin off Andhra coast, will be able to pump out 75,000 barrels a day of oil and 17 million standard cubic metres a day of gas. "Over the next 15 years beginning 2020, we will see our output touching 23 million barrels of oil and 50.7 million cubic metres of gas from this field. We expect to achieve peak production levels by FY22," he said. Sarraf described the new oil and gas policy announced on March 10 as "the best thing happened in many decades as that was a golden day for the oil industry". The Cabinet approved a new pricing formula for gas discoveries made in difficult-to-access areas. The formula will be based on a weighted one-year average of prices of fuel oil, naptha and imported coal. In a bid to attract investments in oil and gas sector, the government Saturday announced a new pricing formula for undeveloped gas discoveries in difficult areas that would result in 85 per cent jump in rates and help monetise Rs 1.80 trillion of inert finds. On the financing side of the massive investment into the D5 Blocks, ONGC Finance Director A K Srinivasan ruled out borrowing for this, saying if the crude price remains at the current levels of $40 a barrel, these expenses spread over three years will be managed with internal accruals and drawing down from cash reserves which stood at Rs 14,500 crore now. Asked whether he sees any addition to the reserves this year, he answered in the negative, saying he expects a decline of over Rs 3,000 crore due to the massive plunge in crude prices. He said ONGC is a debt-free company on a standalone basis, while at the Group level it has debt of Rs 43,000 crore, most of which is on the book of its international arm OVL, whose net debt is Rs 35,000 crore, most of which has been borrowed for the acquisitions in Mozambique. On the decline in production, Sarraf said over the past 8-10 years, ONGC has been seeing a continuous drop in output of both gas and oil to the tune of 2% a year. "But fortunately, we could stop the decline from last year and we expect to see production growth from FY17," he said, adding oil production decline was more pronounced in 2014 and 2015. On the projects side, Sarraf said the company got approval for six projects in FY15 worth Rs 28,000 crore which could produce 78 million tonnes of oil and same amount of gas. The company completed 8 projects worth Rs 27,000 crore in the same fiscal. In FY16, the company has started six new projects worth Rs 14,000 crore which can produce 23 mt oil and gas equivalent and completed 11 projects worth Rs 28,000 crore. "Before June, we hope to complete 5 more projects." On the capex for next fiscal year, he said the company will be investing around Rs 30,000 crore over and above the huge D5 investments planned. The PSU has been investing Rs 30,000 crore on an average for the past many years now. Sarraf was quick to add that though there was a decline in capex, the actual projects "we have been working on have in fact increase, thanks to the decline in input cost and also cost of services". On the new gas pricing announced on March 10, wherein the price has almost doubled to $7 per unit, Sarraf said, "We are very excited as the policy would help us monetise huge quantity of oil and gas. We will get freedom to price gas from its idle discoveries in deepsea, ultra deepsea and high pressure and high-temperature areas." Describing the Union Budget as disappointing from an oil and gas industry perspective, Sarraf said the 20% ad valorem oil cess announced by the Finance Minister is too steep. "We were expecting cess to be around 8-10%. Commenting on overseas assets, Sarraf said, "We have always been looking at overseas assets, but this is now more challenging than before because of falling crude oil prices." On domestic asset acquisitions, he said the government announced the policy to identify assets and "we are looking at the same". ONGC is set to get the possession of the Ratna and R-series shallow-water oil fields off the Mumbai coast after an interval of about two decades. "We are technically examining how much production can be made from the Ratna field," he added. A Delhi-based man was arrested for allegedly cheating people by luring them with jackpot prizes, police said today. Chandigarh Cyber Crime Investigation Cell today said that Munish Kumar, resident of Delhi's Dwarka area, was arrested after he was found running a portal www.Saveinkart.Com to dupe customers, police said. A complainant said that he had received a call from an unknown number from Delhi that he could win a Royal Enfield motorcycle, following which he paid Rs 1,17,000 to Kumar online, they said. Acting on a tip off, police conducted a raid at a residential complex in Mehrauli in Delhi and found a call centre being run from the house where fake invoices generated by the company were recovered, police said. Intermittent snowfall in the higher reaches of Kashmir and light rains on the plains, including in Srinagar, resulted in considerable drop in the mercury across the state. Ski resort Gulmarg received about 10 inches of fresh snow this afternoon, the MeT department said. Heavy snowfall blocked Tangdhar-Nasta Chhun road in Kupwara district of north Kashmir, leaving over 70 passengers stranded on the route. They were later rescued by army personnel. Reports of moderate snowfall were also received from other high altitude areas, including Amarnath cave shrine and 'Peer Ki Gali' in south, Sonamarg and Zojilla pass in central, Z-Gali and adjoining areas in north Kashmir, the officials said. The maximum temperature in Srinagar settled at 10.8 degrees Celsius, a drop of almost 10 degrees since yesterday. The night temperature also dropped to 4.4 degrees Celsius from 8.5 degrees Celsius yesterday. An army team launched a rescue mission last night in Tangdhar at Nasta ChhunPass after it received information about stranded vehicles full of passengers including women, children and the elderly, and an ambulance with a critically-ill heart patient, an army spokesman said today. Incessant rains and heavy snowfall in higher reaches of Tangdhar triggered avalanches on Tangdhar-Nasta Chhun road, causing road blocks at various places, the spokesman said. "Army's avalanche rescue team of Nasta Chhun Pass immediately sprang into action in the wake of harsh weather conditions, snow blizzard and zero visibility. "The team of local Rashtriya Rifle unit rescued 73 civilians and gave medical aid besides providing them safe passage," the spokesman said. Europe and Russia are set to launch an unmanned spacecraft on Monday to smell Mars' atmosphere for gassy evidence that life once existed on the Red Planet, or may do so still. ExoMars 2016, the first of a two-phase Mars exploration, will see an orbiter hoisted from Kazakhstan at 0931 GMT Monday on a Russian Proton rocket. With its suite of high-tech instruments, the Trace Gas Orbiter or TGO, should arrive at the Red Planet on October 19 after a journey of 496 million kilometres (308 million miles). Its main mission to photograph the Red Planet and analyse its air, the TGO will also piggyback a Mars lander dubbed Schiaparelli. "Rocket rollout -- our #ExoMars 2016 mission is at the launch pad!" the European Space Agency (ESA) tweeted Friday. ExoMars is a two-step collaboration between ESA and Russia's Roscosmos space agency. The second phase, a Mars rover due for launch in 2018, seems likely to be delayed over money worries. But the first phase is going ahead as planned, and with high expectations: "Determining whether Mars is 'alive' today", according to an ESA document. A key goal is to analyse methane, a gas which on Earth is created in large part by living microbes, and traces of which were observed by previous Mars missions. "TGO will be like a big nose in space," according to Jorge Vago, ExoMars project scientist. Methane, the ESA said, is normally destroyed by ultraviolet radiation within a few hundred years, which implied that in Mars' case "it must still be produced today." The question is: By what? Methane can either be generated in a biological process, such as microbes decomposing organic matter, or geological ones involving chemical processes in hot liquid water under the surface. TGO will analyse Mars' methane in more detail than any previous mission, said ESA, to try and determine its likely origin. Another key element of the ExoMars 2016 mission is Schiaparelli, named after a 19th century Italian astronomer whose discovery of "canals" on Mars caused people to believe, for a while, that there was intelligent life on our neighbouring planet. : The Farmers Workers Union, affiliated to the Bharat Kisan Mazdoor Union, today requested the NDA government to ensure higher allocation of funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). General Secretary of the union's local unit K Murugan said in a release today that they also wanted the government to raise the number of days of work from present 100 to 200. He said the Union had at its conference here yesterday adopted resolutions asking Puducherry government to take steps to provide basic amenities for farm workers, protect farm lands and also social security of the workers. A Welfare Board for farm labourers should also be set up, he said. Federal prosecutors in New Jersey say a woman lured foreigners seeking work in the US with nonexistent jobs at her fake clinical research company and charged them unnecessary fees for visas. Raina Massey, of Elmont, New York, is charged with wire fraud, visa fraud and aggravated identity theft. She pleaded not guilty yesterday and was released on USD 150,000 bond. US Attorney Paul Fishman says Massey ran the scheme from February 2012 to March 2015 through her Newark-based shell company called Care Worldwide. Fishman says she sought out professionals for fake jobs and charged them for visa applications that are free to fill out. Instead of jobs in their field, some workers were forced to hand out fliers on corners. Massey's lawyer says she looks forward to her day in court. It was because of fear and confusion that she couldn't muster up the courage to share the incident with her fellow tourists or police, the woman said. "I felt that I was sleep walking and had no memory of the incidents. The accused kept on threatening me that they will kill me. I was in a foreign country for the first time. That's why I was not able to confide with my fellow group members as well as police," she said. The main accused, a tour guide, was questioned by the police last week and told them that the victim gave them a positive feedback in the forms and even an internal inquiry conducted by the company on the basis of the victim's complaint didn't find them guilty. "I don't know what the accused have said but I don't recall giving positive feedback in the forms. I am not aware of any internal inquiry by their company," she said. Her first trip to a foreign country outside her own has left her scarred and she says that she won't be able to stay in any hotel now. "I am very much scared of travelling outside the US after this incident. I don't think I can even stay in any hotel now because of this incident," she said. But as she ends the interview, she affirms that she doesn't hate India and would like to come back here. "My fascination with India hasn't changed. I am just very weary due to the situation but would like to visit India someday with someone," she said. Mrityunjay Kumar, partner of Dhingra & Singh - Attorneys at Law firm, who is handling the case said, "She is willing to come down to India. She wants that the police should conduct a thorough and professional investigation in the matter and the accused should be convicted. A week after their release from Pakistani jails, 86 fishermen reunited with their family members at the coastal town of Veraval this evening. The fishermen were freed by Pakistani authorities on March 6 and they reached the Wagah border in Punjab two days later. They arrived here last night from Amritsar by Mumbai- bound Golden Express train. "The fishermen reached Veraval (from Vadodara) this evening and they were received by their family members," Babubhai Bokharia, Gujarat Fisheries Minister, told PTI over phone. From the coastal town, where their family members were camping since yesterday, the fishermen left for their native places. Most of them hail from Gujarat and Union Territory of Daman and Diu. N Patel, Assistant Director of Fisheries, Gujarat Government, had accompanied them in the train from Amritsar to Vadodara. Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) sleuths today seized foreign brand cigarette valued around Rs 68 lakh from North East Express at Patna junction. Acting on a tip off, a team of DRI raided the brake van of the Guwahati-New Delhi North East Express at Patna junction and seized 17 bundles of cigarette manufactured in Myanmar, DRI sources said. The consignment was booked from Rangiayan in Assam and meant for delivery at New Delhi, they said. The seized cigarette is valued at Rs 68 lakh, the sources said. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve voiced support for President Barack Obama's administration in its efforts to get Apple to unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino attackers. "I completely understand the US administration's concerns, which I share," Cazeneuve said yesterday during a talk on counterterrorism at George Washington University. The FBI is pressing Apple to develop a system that would allow the law enforcement agency to break into the suspect's locked iPhone, a demand the tech company claims would make all its devices vulnerable, including to criminals and dictatorships. The French minister expressed hope that a solution would be found with all tech giants. "I don't think it's necessary to wrestle" with Apple and other companies that provide encryption because "they have an interest to be our partners," Cazeneuve said. "The digital ecosystem, that's democracy. If democracy cannot defend itself" against violent extremists, "the ecosystem falls apart," he added. "The citizens who today tell us 'privacy' and 'freedom' will tomorrow ask us 'but what did you do to protect us'" from new devastating attacks, Cazeneuve said. He pressed for procedures under a judge's authority to access encrypted content. Cazeneuve is due to meet with Obama's Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. He is also expected in New York to meet with city police where he is expected to discuss the resilience of major cities hit by large-scale attacks, according to his aides. French police arrested 14 people today after a far-right group took to the streets for an anti-immigrant rally in the port town of Calais, where thousands of migrants are living in improvised camps. The roughly 80 activists blocked off two bridges close to the city centre and burned tyres, waved banners and set off smoke bombs, police and officials said. Riot police broke up the demonstration and seized a truck transporting equipment for the group. While surrounded by officers, some protesters carried banners saying "No Way" and "Go Home," according to photos and video of the protest posted on Twitter. A press release from the far-right group - Generation Identitaire - said about 130 activists took control of "three bridges that allowed migrants to access the city of Calais." This incident comes after five men posing as police officers were detained yesterday on suspicion of attacking migrants in Calais. A police source said the attackers used iron bars and pickaxe handles, saying the men went repeatedly to Calais to attack migrants. Four other people were arrested on February 22 and charged with participating in attacks several months ago on migrants near the infamous Calais camp known as the "Jungle". Thousands of migrants have been living in the Jungle and other smaller camps along the northern coast, desperate to reach Britain where many have family or community ties and see better hopes of gaining employment or education. Calcutta Gems and Jewellery Welfare Association today organised a procession protesting against the imposition of excise duty by the Centre. The procession, which began at Girish Park and ended at Wellington Square, was attended among others by a large number of jewellers, representatives and owners from West Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Jharkhand. The Association leaders said that the jewellery industry has suffered a huge loss because of the Centre's decision, affecting two crore people across the country. "The imposition of excise duty is not only putting the jewellery shop owners at the backfoot but also giving a blow to the poor and hard-working workers of the states who are under huge financial crisis," they said. The jewellers have kept their shops closed for the last 10 days to hold the protest rally along with different associations of eastern India protesting against the imposition of excise duty on jewellery. Union Minister of State for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya today said the Union government was planning to disburse loans to nearly 15 crore people under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana. Speaking at a review meeting of State Level Bankers Committee, he said the Union Budget allocates around Rs 1.85 lakh crore for this purpose. "At present, there are nearly three crore people who have benefited through PMMY. The government intends to provide these loans mainly to the women entrepreneurs from the backward sections," he said. Some 3.5 lakh people in Telangana and 6.18 lakh people in Andhra Pradesh were granted loans under the scheme, the minister said. At another event, Dattatreya said the Centre would issue a notification on April 1 to provide medical facilities to auto-rickshaw drivers at Employees State Insurance Corporation hospitals. It would be implemented on pilot basis first at Delhi and Hyderabad, he said. Speaking at a function where the ESIC and Telangana Government signed an MoU for temporary handover of ESIC hospitals at Sanatnagar and Nacharam to the state, he said that more workers in the unorganised sectors will be brought under the social security system in the coming days. N Narasimha Reddy, state minister for Home and Labour, requested the Union minister to provide facilities at ESIC hospitals at Warangal and elsewhere in Telangana. Greece has said it aimed to "resolve" the migrant build-up on the Macedonian border within a week, as Chinese artist Ai Weiwei hauled a white grand piano to the muddy frontier to highlight their plight. As the rain poured down on Idomeni camp, where some 12,000 people are stranded in miserable conditions, a surreal scene played out with Syrian refugee Nour Alkhzam sitting at the piano and playing for 20 minutes under cover of plastic sheeting held up by Ai and a handful of others. The stunt was the latest in a series of projects by the dissident artist to shine a spotlight on the people caught up in Europe's worst migrant crisis since World War II. With the human suffering worsening at the border after Balkans states closed their borders, Dimitris Vitsas, the Greek minister charged with coordinating the refugee flow, said Athens would try to convince people to move to other reception centres across the country. By the end of next week, there would be "50,000 spots" available across the country, he said. "I hope the situation at Idomeni is resolved within a week without recourse to force," he told Mega TV, saying some 400 people had already moved to other centres in northern Greece on Friday. Earlier in the day, around 200 people demonstrated in Idomeni over conditions at the camp where they have been waiting in vain for the Macedonian border to open so they can continue their journey to central and northern Europe. Chanting "open the border", they staged a sit-in protest at a cross-border railway line, according to an AFP photographer at the scene. The border closures have left thousands, many of them children, forced to camp out in increasingly squalid conditions in the area around the Idomeni crossing. As Europe's diplomats rushed to try and find answers to the crisis, a 44-year-old Syrian refugee began a hunger strike to highlight the ongoing suffering at the frontier. Nazim Serhan, who travelled to Europe with his three children, is hoping to join his wife in Germany where she is battling cancer. "I want to see her, just for one day," he told journalists. Also hoping to reach Germany was the 24-year-old refugee playing at the piano, whose husband is already living there. "She has been victimised by these wars. She has not had the chance to touch a piano in three years," Ai said, explaining the piano as an "attempt to create an opportunity" for her. There are more than 42,000 migrants and refugees currently in Greece, of which around 7,700 are on islands in the Aegean Sea. Many more, most fleeing the Syrian conflict, are still trying to reach the Greek islands by taking dangerous boat trips from Turkey. Accusing the BJP government in Goa of indulging in irregularities and not taking up people's issues, a group of Opposition MLAs today vowed to corner the government in the Budget session of the Assembly that begins from Monday. The legislators, including Congress's Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, Vishwajit Rane, expelled Congress MLA Atanasio Monserratte and Independents Vijai Sardessai, Rohan Khaunte and Naresh Sawal, said they have decided to adopt a joint strategy to expose the Laxmikant Parsekar-led government. The legislators, addressing a press conference, said they would corner the government on issues like beach cleaning scam, power failure, scam in organisation of International Film Festival of India (IFFI) and other issues. "The budget that would be presented in the Assembly on March 16 would be just a hype and publicity-oriented. People's aspirations will be missing from that," Sardessai told reporters in presence of all the other legislators. He accused the BJP-led government of giving unwarranted attention to useless issues while keeping the problems of the people on the backburner. The legislators also criticised the government for giving less importance to the widespread monkey fever disease in the state, which has claimed seven lives. "This government has totally failed in its duty to control the disease. People from my constituency are dying and the government has not taken any action on it," Congress legislator Vishwajit Rane representing Valpoi constituency said. Several people are hospitalised and seven have already lost their lives due to the monkey fever. Another independent legislator Rohan Khaunte alleged that the government has been "completely backing" illegalities in the beach cleanliness scam. "If law is equal for everyone, the beach cleaning scam, which runs into crores of rupees, should be probed. The government is turning blind eye to it," he said. Khaunte had raised the issue in the last Assembly session. Congress's expelled legislator Atanasio Monserratte said the government indulged in fraud by giving a consultancy fee of Rs 200 crore to construct road between Miramar and Donapaula near here. "With that kind of money, a bridge across Zuari river could have been constructed. These frauds needs to be investigated by independent agencies and responsibilities should be fixed," he said. Ruling out a new stimulus package to halt the slowdown of its economy, China today said the new growth target of 6.5-7 per cent can be attained by improving domestic demand, consumption and innovation without resorting to special measures like devaluation of currency. The growth targets set for this year and the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020) can be realised through improving domestic demand, consumption and innovation, without big stimulus, Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), said. "China will stick to the prudent monetary policy," Zhou told a press conference on the sidelines of the national legislature's annual session. China has set its growth target for 2016 in the range of 6.5-7 per cent, while that for years leading to 2020 is above 6.5 per cent. These are "anticipatory targets" which are made on the basis of China's growth trajectory in the past and its growth potential in the future, Zhou said. He said with the improvement in domestic demand, consumption and innovation, the growth targets are attainable without resorting to stimulus. While ruling out stimulus to revive the economy like it did in the past, China, however, has been approving huge infrastructure development projects costing billions of dollars like the second rail link to connect Tibet. Zhou saidChina seeks growth by relying more on domestic demand as the old growth driver of exports loses steam and is not able to contribute to the economic growth the way it used to. He said China has no intention of manipulating its currency rate to stimulate exports. The fall of exports accelerated the economic slowdown as the GDP last year slipped below 6.9 per cent, the worst in 26 years. Last month, speaking at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank governors meeting in Shanghai, Zhou assured the world that China would not drastically devalue its currency to boost its trade. Near four per cent devaluation of yuan last year sent the world markets in a tizzy. The devaluation following series of stock market crashes was reportedly aimed at boosting falling export revenues. Today Zhou dismissed the concerns over exports decline saying the market should pay more attention to China's net exports, citing nearly USD 600 billion of goods trade surplus in 2015. "The share of China's exports edged up in the global trade," Zhou said. (Reopens FGN 23) Investment growth by state-owned enterprises also slowed to 21.8 per cent in the first seven months, from 23.5 per cent in the first half. Infrastructure investment jumped 19.6 per cent during the period, decelerating from 20.9 per cent in the first half. Breakdown of today's data shone a light on the economy as new development dynamics gained steam, with new industries, new technologies, new services and new business models prospering. Output of the high-tech industry climbed 12.2 per cent in July, accelerating from June's 10.6-per cent increase. New energy car production grew 52.5 per cent in July. Revenues of strategic emerging services gained 15.6 per cent year-on-year in the first half as per NBS data. However, Sheng noted the new economy was not strong enough to pick up the slack. All political parties, except Congress, today met Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki urging him not to give his assent to a bill being brought by Punjab to de-notify the land for construction of Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal. An all-party meeting was called by the Haryana government to discuss SYL and Jat reservation issues here which was attended among others by representatives of ruling BJP, opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Haryana Janhit Congress-BL (HJC-BL) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). Congress boycotted the meet. The meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar unanimously adopted a resolution which was submitted to the Governor as a memorandum. Solanki is the Governor of Haryana and is also holding additional charge of Punjab. "The Bill which has been brought by Punjab, is not right. Entire Haryana is upset about it. The bill is an attack on the Constitution," Haryana Agriculture Minister O P Dhankar said after the all-party meeting. "A similar law was brought by Punjab in 2004 which hit Haryana's interest. Haryana is fighting its battle in the Supreme Court...We are meeting Governor on SYL issue and will convey him that the Bill which is to be brought by Punjab government in Vidhan Sabha was against article 356 of the Constitution," he said. INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala said the Governor should not give his assent to "The Punjab Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal (Rehabilitation and Re-vesting of Proprietary Rights) Bill, 2016". "To ensure this Bill is not tabled in Punjab Vidhan Sabha and to stop it, we will meet the Governor... He should stop the passage of the Bill... As it will create a new conflict between Punjab and Haryana," Chautala said. Assuring his party's support, HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi said, "On SYL issue we are with the state government." Khattar said the Governor has assured that since the SYL Canal was an issue between Punjab and Haryana the matter would be discussed. Describing the decision of Punjab government to de-notify the land for the canal as "wrong", he said the SYL canal should be constructed in the interest of Haryana and, since all parties were united on this, the state's interest would be protected. On Congress boycotting the all-party meeting, Khattar said it was regrettable that the main opposition was "playing politics" on the issue by staying away from the meeting. "Maybe the Congress boycott was due to their internal issues," he said, adding they should have also extended support in the larger interest of the state. The memorandum said, "The issue of construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal in the Punjab region has been hanging fire for the last four decades. The SYL Canal is the lifeline of Haryana. "The farmers have been waiting for several years to get their allocated share of the Ravi-Beas waters through this canal. Irrigation capacity of three lakh hectares developed in the state is not being utilised due to non-completion of the canal, thus causing loss of agricultural produce worth crores of rupees every year," it stated. "Therefore, early completion of the canal is not only in the interest of Haryana, but also in the larger interest of the nation as a whole," the memorandum said. "It is not in our culture to usurp the share of others. Haryana is neither asking for charity, nor demanding Punjab's share of water. Haryana only wants a passage to get its allocated share of the Ravi-Beas waters, and this passage is the SYL Canal," it said. The memorandum also mentioned SC's directions in its judgment on January 15, 2002, which, by way of a mandatory injunction, directed Punjab to continue the digging of SYL canal and make it functional within a year. The SC also directed the Centre to "discharge its constitutional obligation" in this regard. If the canal is not completed in a year, the Centre should get it done "through its own agencies...So that Haryana would be able to draw the full quantity of water that has already been allotted to it". Punjab had filed a review petition in the SC against its decision which was dismissed on March 5, 2002. Therefore, the verdict delivered on January 15, 2002 is the final decision, the memorandum said. Punjab Cabinet yesterday gave nod for introducing "The Punjab Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal (Rehabilitation and Re-vesting of Proprietary Rights) Bill, 2016" in the ongoing session of state assembly to de-notify and return 5,376 acres of land acquired for the construction of SYL canal to the owners. The step was intended to block sharing of water with Haryana. Instead of following the SC decision, the then state government got the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, passed. This Act is not only an "open insult" to both the federal system and democracy but also causes an affront to the dignity of the Constitution, the memorandum said. A Presidential reference in this regard is pending in the Supreme Court, it said. "The Haryana government had raised this issue at the 27th meeting of the Northern Council held in Delhi on April 25, 2015. We had requested that the Solicitor General of India/ Attorney General should safeguard the Presidential reference and urge the SC to take prompt decision. This matter has been pending for the last about 11 years. "Accepting our request, the Hon'ble Supreme Court started hearing on this matter on February 29 this year. Hearing was also held on March 8," the memorandum said. "Even as the SC is seized of the matter, the Punjab government has issued statements in many newspapers stating that it will bring a Bill in the Vidhan Sabha to de-notify the land acquired for the SYL Canal and return it to the farmers, causing another grave injury to the very essence of the federal structure," it said. The memorandum stated that the bill to de-notify land for construction of SYL canal "amounts to gross violation of the dignity of the Constitution", and urged him to make all possible efforts to stop its passage. One Direction star Harry Styles will be making his acting debut with Christopher Nolan's WWII action thriller project "Dunkirk". Along with Styles, 22, English actors Jack Lowden and Aneurin Barnard are in talks to join the production, said The Hollywood Reporter. The cast also includes this year's Oscar winner Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy and Sir Kenneth Branagh. Production on the drama is set to begin in May, which will be shot on 65mm large format film and Imax. The movie centers on the British military evacuation of the French city of Dunkirk in 1940, one of the biggest battles during the way. "Dunkirk" is Nolan's follow-up to the space epic "Interstellar". File Photo - Mumbai-based artist Hema Upadhyay, who was found dead in a drain in Mumbai's Kandivali suburb. Photo: PTI Mumbai Police has filed a charge sheet arraigning artist Chintan Upadhyay as the main accused in the killing of his estranged wife and installation artist and her lawyer Haresh Bhambhani. The suburban Kandivali police station filed a 2,000-page chargesheet against Chintan and four others--Vidyadhar Rajbhar, Pradeep Rajbhar, Shivkumar Rajbhar and Vijay Rajbhar-- yesterday. While Chintan, Pradeep and Shivkumar are in custody, Vidyadhar is still absconding. "We have completed our investigation and filed the charge sheet before the Borivili metropolitan magistrate court. Once the case is committed to sessions court the charges will be framed and trial will start," a senior police officer said. He added that police will recommend appointment of Ujjwal Nikam as special public prosecutor in the case. The police has listed 30 witnesses in the case including absconding accused Vidyadhar's mother who has allegedly named Chintan in her statement. According to the police, Vidyadhar's mother has said that her son had earlier told her that Chintan had given him money to murder Hema. Apart from Vidyadhar's mother, police has also incorporated Hema's servant Lalit Mandal in the list of witnesses. Mandal in his statement given to the Kandivali police said that he was "surprised" to receive a call from Chintan after Hema went missing, as he rarely called him to enquire about her. Mandal stated that Chintan, who was living in Delhi, usually did not call him up to ask about Hema as their relationship was strained. Chintan left Mumbai on the night of December 8, and after Hema went missing on December 11, Mandal claimed to have received a call from Chintan asking him whether he was at home and whether Hema was present there, as if to check whether his plan had worked or not, said an official. It was then that Mandal told him about her disappearance. The police also has crucial technical evidence like CCTV footage in which the two victims can be seen leaving their car and walking towards Vidyadhar's workshop. The charge sheet also comprises call detail records of Chintan and the rest of the accused, including Vidyadhar and the messages exchanged among them, along with statements of some witnesses. In the charge sheet, the police has claimed that even the murder of Bhambhani was pre-meditated as he represented Hema in all her cases and Chintan wanted to finish them both. Chintan, accused of conspiring to kill Hema (43) and her lawyer Harish (65), was arrested on December 22. According to police, bodies of both the victims, wrapped in plastic and packed in separate cardboard boxes were found dumped in a drain in suburban Kandivali on December 12 last year. An annual anti-nuclear rally in Taiwan today saw a much lower turnout than previous years as president-elect Tsai Ing-wen vows to abolish the use of atomic energy on the island by 2025. Hundreds of people gathered outside Taipei's Presidential Palace in the rain, many wearing yellow ribbons and stickers bearing the slogans "Say goodbye to nuclear" and "Nuclear go zero". However, the crowd was noticeably smaller than the the thousands who joined last year's protest. Organisers chalked up the demonstration's small showing to the Democratic Progressive Party's victory at the polls in January. The DPP has promised, along with a slew of new political parties set to enter parliament, to phase out the use of nuclear energy. "Whether it's the DPP or the New Power Party, those that agree with creating a nuclear-free home have become the majority [in parliament]," Shu-Hsin Tsui, secretary general of Green Citizens' Action Alliance, told AFP. Tsai, who will take office in May, today reiterated her party's plan to make Taiwan nuclear-free within a decade. "To accomplish this goal, in addition to promoting energy efficiency we need to more importantly adjust the energy mix," the president-elect said in a Facebook post. The DPP says it will put forward a raft of new energy policies once it takes office, including plans to increase the use of clean energy on the island. Taiwan currently generates about one-fifth of its energy from three nuclear plants. In 2014, authorities were forced to seal off a nearly-completed fourth nuclear plant after public opposition. The DPP has said it has no plans to restart the project. The rally comes a day after Japan marked the fifth anniversary of a major nuclear disaster when the Fukushima energy plant was hit by a tsunami following an earthquake, knocking out power to its cooling systems and sending reactors into meltdown. Taiwan, like Japan, is prone to frequent quakes as the island lies on a number of fault lines. Protesters today also called on the government to propose new measures to safely store nuclear waste. "There hasn't been a comprehensive plan to deal with nuclear waste. We need to face this for our children," said Elvin Wu, 35, who attended the rally with her five-year-old daughter. "If the waste can't be effectively processed, then we hope that the nuclear plants will be shut. An Indian teacher, who is on the short-list of a USD 1 million global prize for teachers, today called on the Indian government to create "new systems" of education that allow everyone to flourish. Robin Chaurasiya, who runs a not-for-profit school in Mumbai for girls from the city's red light areas, is the only Indian among 10 finalists for the London-based Varkey Foundation sponsored Global Teacher Prize to be announced at the annual Global Education & Skills Forum (GESF) in Dubai tomorrow. "The purpose of education is not to oppress people, not to cycle systems of pressure that are already in existence that are holding India down. We need to completely create new systems that will allow everyone to flourish and not just recreate systems of oppressions that are already existence," said Chaurasiya founder of Kranti School. Asked about her plans if she was to win the big prize, she said she would split the prize money with her fellow nominees from the UK, US, Nairobi, Palestine, Japan, Finland, Australia and Pakistan. "I plan to distribute it with the finalists. I think they are all doing such phenomenal work in regions like Pakistan and Palestine. As much as I connect with my kids so deeply, I can imagine all the other teachers feel the same. Kranti School, which has 18 girls enrolled between the ages of 12 and 21 years, plans to expand to other red light areas of Mumbai and eventually work towards its special curriculum being adopted around the country. "Right now we work in our home and we have 18 girls but we want a proper school. The curriculum is ready, everything is ready, we might as well be reaching more students," she added. In reference to the founder of the prize, Kerala-born entrepreneur Sunny Varkey, she added: "It's amazing that the Varkey Foundation would recognise an alternative school like this. When we talk about education, it's about so many things that focus on careers. "We are very clear about the fact that the focus should be happiness, which creates compassionate and good people who spread happiness in the world." The prize was created last year as a kind of Oscars for the teaching profession by the UK-based Varkey Foundation. "Half a billion children are currently in failing schools. This is simply not acceptable in a world where we're now so interconnected. This forum intends to tackle this head on by asking the simple question of how we can make education everybody's business," said Varkey. The prize will be announced in Dubai tomorrow, attended by Hollywood stars like Matthew McConaughey and Salma Hayek and Bollywood stars like Abhishek Bachchan, Akshay Kumar and Parineeti Chopra. Members of state and provincial legislatures from India and Pakistan as well as experts today said experiences on good governance in both the countries in development of agriculture and tourism provide great potential for exchange of ideas and cooperation. In the third India-Pakistan Legislators and Public Officials Dialogue on Sharing of Experiences on Governance and Democracy held here for exchange of ideas, participants stressed on the need for more avenues of interaction and learning between the two countries. "They agreed that each delegate has a responsibility to carry forward the proposals discussed for policy reform in two countries. Need for a time-bound roadmap in this regard was also highlighted," a statement said. The participants underscored the need for facilitating greater engagement of youth in the two countries in areas including democratic and governance development. They agreed that enormous potential of cooperation on tourism promotion exists in the two countries which remains untapped. "Tourism offers a key avenue of promoting peace between India and Pakistan. The two countries must explore avenues of promoting nostalgic and religious tourism as well. "An exceptional example offered in this regard was that of respect and following of Sheikh Burhan-al-Din dargah in Rajasthan which is equally popular among Muslims and Hindus," the release said. Lack of relaxed visa regime was highlighted as a major stumbling block in promotion of tourism between Pakistan and India. Delegates urged the governments of Pakistan and India to adopt citizen-friendly visa regime allowing free access to citizens of the two countries. On the promotion of agriculture, the participants focused on learning from each country's effective agricultural practices. The participants supported promotion and development of solar farming in arid areas. Need for research and cooperation for research in the sector were also stressed. Both the countries must also focus on development and use of organic farming practices in the agricultural sector, the release added. Deputy Speaker of Rajasthan assembly Rao Rajendra Singh, MLA Chotu Singh and other experts were present from the Indian side whereas the Pakistani delegation included senator Lt Gen (Retd) Abdul Qayyum, senator Saud Majeed, Muhammad Afzal Khan among others. Appreciating continuing reform process in the country, chief Christine Lagarde Saturday said "India's star shines bright" amid global economic challenges and can deliver nearly two-thirds of the worldwide growth over the next four years despite a slowing momentum. The world's fastest-growing large economy, she said, is on the verge of having the largest and youngest-ever workforce and, in a decade, set to become the world's most populous country. "So, India stands at a crucial moment in its historywith an unprecedented opportunity for transformation. Important reforms are already under way," the Managing Director said at a conference on 'Advancing Asia: Investing for the Future' in New Delhi. "Think, for example, of Make-in-India and Digital India. And with the promise of even more reforms to come, India's star shines bright." The conference is being organised by the Ministry of Finance and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Recalling that India and go back a long way together India was a founding member of the Fund more than 70 years ago Lagarde said Asia is the world's most dynamic region and today accounts for 40% of the global economy. "Over the next four years, even with a slightly declining momentum, it stands to deliver nearly two-thirds of global growth," she added. Lagarde, who got reelected for the second term as chief of the Washington-headquartered IMF, pointed to the global economy facing many challenges. These challenges, she said, include volatile markets and capital flows, economic transitions and financial tightening in many countries, the large drop in commodity prices, including oil and escalated geo-political tension. India and Mexico today discussed ways to enhance cooperation in key areas of trade and energy with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj inviting Mexican participation in government's flagship programmes such as Make-in-India and Digital India. Swaraj and her Mexican counterpart Claudia Ruiz Massieu Salinas also talked about ways and means of elevating the special relationship between the two countries and agreed to schedule the next meeting of the Joint Commission in Mexico in the second half of 2016. The visiting dignitary had called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday. Acknowledging that the present bilateral trade volume of USD 6.5 billion was low, Swaraj sought Mexican participation in the flagship programmes such as Make-in-India, Digital India, Skill India and Smart Cities, the MEA Spokesperson said in a release. The two Ministers also discussed cooperation in a number of areas including oil and gas (India is the third largest purchaser of crude oil from Mexico), renewable energy, urban planning and the housing sector. Swaraj also mentioned that India would like Mexico's participation in ensuring value addition and greater use of technology in our agriculture and agro-processing sectors. The External Affairs Minister also conveyed government's interest in providing launch facilities for Mexican micro and nano satellites. "Both sides shared their perspective on increasing engagement with the diaspora (Mexico has a 35 million diaspora in the US alone). They also exchanged views on cooperation on issues relating to women's empowerment," the Spokesperson said. The Mexican Foreign Minister renewed the invitation extended by the Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto for Modi to visit Mexico in the near future. The body of a local youth, who died on Wednesdayfollowing an attack by goons inRussain province of Tatarstan, was today laid to rest at his ancestral graveyard here amid demandfor justice for the deceased's family. Yasir Shirazi's body was brought in an ambulance to his Hassanabad residence in Rainawari locality of downtown Srinagar this afternoon and was received by several thousands of mourners, including relatives. The mourners, carrying black flags and photographsof the 27-year-old, shouted slogans demanding justice for the family during the funeral procession. They praised the prompt action of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to ensure early transportation of the body from Russia to his birthplace in the Valley. The mourners expressed hope that the guilty would be identified and brought to book. The deceased hailed from a business family and dealt in handicrafts, particularly paper mache goods. He was on a business trip to Russia when he was attacked by local goons while returning to his hotel. The attackers, apparently robbers, took away his bag containing money, passport and other belongings. He was taken to hospital where he slipped into coma and after battling for life for a few days, was declared dead on Wednesday. Earlier, Swaraj said the Centre has taken up the issue with Russian authorities and "we will take this to the logical conclusion." The incident had came to light after Murtaza Jaffar, a friend of Yasir, informed the External Affairs Minister through a tweet about the incident. After the tweet, Swaraj responded through a number of tweets and offered all possible help. An inspector of a local intelligence unit has been shunted out in the wake of the report by an inquiry commission into the 2013 communal riots which indicted him for failure to provide proper information. The inspector, Prabal Pratap Singh, was posted in Liu during the 2013 riots, which left over 60 people dead in Muzaffarnagar and surrounding districts while thousands of others were displaced. According to SSP K B Singh, Arun Kumar would be the new incharge of Liu here. The Justice Vishnu Sahai Commission, whose 700-page report was tabled in the state assembly on March 6, concluded that intelligence failure and laxity on the part of police led to the violence. The commission said polarisation along communal lines following the murder of two young men by a youth from minority community in Kawal town on August 27, 2013, was the trigger behind the riots. The panel said the riots took place as Prabal Pratap Singh failed to give the exact figure of people going for a Mahapanchayat at Mandaur. The Hindus, particularly Jats, returning from the Mahapanchayat were allegedly attacked by the minority community members, fuelling tensions further. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed today to retaliate against the Islamic State group after it launched a chemical attack on a town near Kirkuk. The suspected mustard gas attack on Taza that left a three-year-old girl dead "will not go unpunished", the premier said in a statement. A large number of rockets were fired at Taza on Wednesday from the nearby village of Bashir, which is held by the jihadists. Intelligence experts are still analysing samples, but local officials believe mustard agent was used in the attack on Taza, which lies just south of the city of Kirkuk and is around 220 kilometres north of Baghdad. Abadi promised that medical support would be provided to the town, where hundreds of people were treated following the chemical attack. Iranian Health Minister Hassan Hashemi said today a medical team from the Islamic republic had arrived in Kirkuk after an "urgent request" from his Iraqi counterpart, Iran's ISNA agency reported. Hundreds of people attended the funeral yesterday of Fatima Samir, the girl who died of wounds suffered in the attack. Some of the mourners carried placards demanding protection. The Iraqi air force carried out a strike on Bashir overnight and Abadi promised a ground operation to retake the village from IS soon, pro-government militia commander Abu Ridha al-Najjar said. Bashir lies in an area that is officially under federal administration but is controlled by Kurdish forces that de facto expanded their autonomous region on the back of the jihadists' 2014 offensive. Tension has been high between Kurdish forces and Shiite militias in the area, impeding military cooperation against IS. In February, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan for the first time openly accused IS of using chemical weapons, including mustard gas, in Iraq and Syria. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israeli diplomats to demand that world powers punish Iran for its recent ballistic missile launches, his office said today. Netanyahu "instructed the foreign ministry to contact the P5+1 countries and demand that immediate punitive measures be taken in the wake of Iran's repeated and gross violations on the missiles issue", it said in an English-language statement. "This is an important step in and of itself and is also a test of the major powers in enforcing the nuclear agreement," it added. An agreement between Iran and the permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) lifts international sanctions in return for Tehran ensuring that its nuclear programme remains purely for civilian use. Israel strongly opposed the deal with its arch-foe, with Netanyahu warning that it would not block Iran's path to nuclear weapons. Iran says it fired two long-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday and similar tests were carried out on Tuesday, less than two months after the Iran nuclear deal was implemented. On Thursday, an Israeli foreign ministry statement condemned the launches. "The development of ground-to-ground missiles with nuclear warhead capability calls into question Iran's intentions to comply in full with the nuclear agreement," it said. Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said yesterday that she had asked the Security Council to discuss the matter on Monday. The United States is "deeply concerned" about the missile tests "which are provocative and destabilizing", she said in a statement. Under the deal with Iran that came into force on January 16, most sanctions resolutions against Tehran were annulled. But an arms embargo and restrictions on ballistic missile technology capable of carrying a nuclear warhead remain in place, under Resolution 2231. Iran has maintained that its missile programme is not aimed at developing a nuclear capability. Israeli planes struck Hamas bases in the Gaza Strip early today, killing a child living near one of the targets and injuring his sister, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. Yasin Abu Khussa, 10, died in a raid on a base of the group's military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassem Brigades, at Beit Lahiya in the north of the strip, he said -- one of four strikes the Israeli military said it carried out in response to rocket fire into Israel. His sister Yasmin, 6, was seriously wounded and his brother Ayub, 13, suffered moderate injuries, al-Qudra told AFP. The strikes came hours after four rockets fired from the Gaza Strip by Palestinian militants hit neighbouring Israel Friday night without apparent casualties, the Israeli army said. "In response to the aggression, the Israel Air Force targeted four Hamas sites in the northern Gaza Strip," a military statement said. "There have been seven rockets fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year." Since the end of the devastating war between Israel and Gaza militants in summer 2014, approximately 34 projectiles fired from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian coastal strip have hit the Jewish state, according to military data. Sunni Muslim militants claiming links to the Islamic State jihadist group have said they were behind rocket fire in recent months, but Israel holds Hamas responsible for all such incidents. A federal judge ruled that BP does not have to pay for economic losses other businesses suffered when the federal government shut down deep-water drilling in the wake of BP's catastrophic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. US District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans issued his ruling late Thursday. The Obama administration imposed a six-month drilling ban in the Gulf to prevent another disaster. The offshore industry called the moratorium a costly mistake. Barbier's ruling came in a lawsuit brought by six companies involved in offshore drilling, but plaintiffs' lawyers said thousands of similar claims worth billions of dollars would be affected by the ruling. The case centered on whether BP was liable under the Oil Pollution Act for the loss of business caused by the moratorium. Barbier sided with BP and said the law relates only to damages caused by the spill. The judge said Congress never intended for the Oil Pollution Act "to go so far" as to hold a polluter liable for government steps, like a moratorium, "aimed at preventing similar tragedies in the future and which broadly affect an entire industry." The Oil Pollution Act was passed in 1990 after the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and it is the principal law covering oil spills. At issue was whether BP should be made to pay for damages that were "not a direct result of an oil discharge," Barbier wrote. Barbier said "there can be no doubt" the moratorium was imposed because the blowout occurred, but the judge said the shutdown was designed to deal with "the risk of possible future blowouts and oil spills from wells other than Macondo and was motivated by perceived weaknesses of industry-wide safety measures." BP declined to comment yesterday on the ruling. The spill has cost the company USD 55.5 billion, according to a recent BP regulatory filing. Brent Coon, a Texas plaintiffs' lawyer who represents clients with moratorium claims, said in a statement yesterday that the ruling was a setback. Coon's statement said the ruling "bodes poorly for yet another massive block of claims that have been waiting for years" for compensation. In April 2010, a well being drilled by BP and its contractors blew out and led to the sinking of the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 workers. The blowout caused more than 130 million gallons of oil to leak into the Gulf. In 2012, BP entered into a settlement with businesses and individuals claiming losses from the spill expected to cost BP over USD 10 billion. Last year, BP reached an USD 18.7 billion agreement with governments in the five Gulf Coast states affected by the spill. The Obama administration is nearing a decision on whether to formally declare that Islamic State group atrocities against religious minorities, including Christians, constitute "genocide." As impatient lawmakers and religious groups step up calls for action, Secretary of State John Kerry is leaning toward making the determination and could do so as early as next week, when a congressional deadline for action has been set, according to several administration officials. However, the officials cautioned that a legal review is still under way and said it is likely Kerry will not meet the March 17 deadline. The House will vote on Monday on a bill that would identify the Islamic State's actions against Christians, Yezidis and other groups, including the Kurds, as "genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity." An executive branch determination of genocide, however, would be different and be fraught with moral and potential legal consequences. It would also mark only the second time a US administration has reached that conclusion while a conflict is ongoing. The first was in 2004 when Secretary of State Colin Powell determined that atrocities being committed in Sudan's Darfur region constituted genocide. Powell reached that determination amid much lobbying from human rights groups but only after State Department lawyers advised him that it would not, contrary to legal advice offered to previous administrations, obligate the United States to take action to stop it. In that case, the lawyers decided that the 1948 UN Convention against genocide did not impose a legal obligation on states to prevent genocide from taking place outside of their territory. Powell instead called for the UN Security Council to appoint a commission to investigate and take appropriate legal action if it agreed with the genocide determination. Kerry faces similar issues. Although the United States is already involved in military strikes against the Islamic State and has helped prevent some incidents of ethnic cleansing, notably of Yezidis, some argue that a genocide determination could require additional US action. At the least, a determination would probably be accompanied by a referral to the Security Council for possible prosecution by either the International Criminal Court or another tribunal that might be set up specifically for Syria and Iraq. Keith Emerson, the co-founder and keyboardist of progressive rock group Emerson, Lake and Palmer, has died. He was 71. The British musician's demise was confirmed by his band in a statement, reported BBC. "We regret to announce that Keith Emerson died last night at his home in Santa Monica, Los Angeles," read a statement on the band's Facebook page. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Santa Monica police confirmed to the BBC. His death was being investigated as a suicide, police added. A police spokesman said Emerson's body was found in the early hours of Friday morning by his girlfriend Mari Kawaguchi at their flat in the Californian city. Former bandmate Carl Palmer said, "I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my good friend and brother-in-music, Keith Emerson. "Keith was a gentle soul whose love for music and passion for his performance as a keyboard player will remain unmatched for many years to come." Born in Yorkshire, England, in 1944, Emerson was considered one of the top keyboard players of the progressive rock era. Inspired by Jimi Hendrix's theatrics with the electric guitar, Emerson was famous for his showmanship and outlandish on-stage performance style. ELP achieved an international following and were particularly popular in Britain and Japan. Several of the group's albums, including "Tarkus", "Trilogy", and "Brain Salad Surgery" entered the top five on the British chart. Before ELP, Emerson was a member of The Nice, which was formed in 1967 but disbanded three years later. In later life, he pursued a solo career and remained active in the music business. He was forced to call off a tour in 2010 due to abnormal growth in his colon, but had a tour of Japan scheduled for next month. His last concert took place in July 2015 at the Barbican in London, where he performed alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra in a tribute to Robert Moog, the inventor of the Moog synthesizer. The kidnapped son of slain Pakistani governor Salman Taseer was not released after a rescue operation by security forces and it remains unclear as to why he was freed by militants after nearly five years of captivity, a probe said today. Shahbaz Taseer, 33, was flown to Lahore from Quetta in a special aircraft from the restive Balochistan province on Tuesday. Interior minister Nisar Ali Khan had set up a committee to probe the circumstances surrounding the freedom of Shahbaz, who was set free this week and several security agencies claimed their involvement in a "successful operation" to release him from kidnappers. "The facts and evidence show that Shahbaz Taseer was not released through an operation by security forces but set free by the captors," interior ministry said in a statement after the conclusion of the probe. The report said it was not clear why the kidnappers set him free or if they were paid ransom. It said no one is allowed to use the issue to link it with their performance. "Those involved in using it for personal advancement will be sternly warned," it said. Shahbaz was kidnapped from the Gulberg area of Lahore from near his office on August 26, 2011 and since than it was feared he was held captive by different militant groups. He was kidnapped soon after his liberal politician father was assassinated by radical Mumtaz Qadri in January, 2011, due to his stance on the controversial blasphemy law. The UN human rights chief has said Sri Lanka needs to "move faster" on key issues like release of land held by the military, even as he acknowledged the "powerful symbolic gestures" made by the country to achieve reconciliation with the minority Tamil community. Sri Lanka has been under international focus to fully implement the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution of last October. Sri Lanka co-sponsored the resolution with the US which called for accountability on the alleged war crimes committed during the final phase of the military conflict with the LTTE that ended in May 2009. "Sri Lanka is on its own journey toward accountability, reconciliation and durable peace. Important steps have been taken to reform the Constitution, revive independent institutions and restore an environment for free expression and debate," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement at the 31st session of the Council. "Powerful symbolic gestures of reconciliation have been made, for instance singing the national anthem in Tamil -- although other steps, such as the release of land held by the military, reviewing the cases of security detainees, and resolving the issue of disappearances, need to move forward faster," he said. Hussein said the next few months will be important as the Sri Lankan government embarks on national consultations for the design of a comprehensive transitional justice process to implement fully this Council's resolution. "It will be very important that this takes place in an environment free of surveillance and intimidation, so the voices of victims can be heard. Reports of violations must be promptly investigated and addressed," he said. Hussein visited Sri Lanka in February to have consultations on the progress which will be reviewed at the June session of the UNHRC. Meanwhile, the European Union said tit expects Sri Lanka to work in close cooperation with the UN Human Rights Commissioner's office in order to fully implement the resolution. Actress Lindsay Lohan has reportedly no interest in coming back to Hollywood. A source close to her said that the "Mean Girls" actress is living a calmer life in London with her new boyfriend Russian buisnessman Egor Tarabasov, so, does not wish to return to Hollywood, reported Aceshowbiz. According to the insider, the 29-year-old star would like to spend her time with Tarabasov in London and had no interest in coming back to Los Angeles. "She will never come back to Hollywood. The second she lands here, she is followed all day long." The source also mentioned some of Lohan's motivations to leave Hollywood. "People don't like her in Hollywood, and she knows," the source pointed out. "I think she's trying to change people's perception of her. Maharashtra government paid Rs 798.44 crore as compensation to contractors for shutting down 12 toll plazas and waiving off charge on light vehicles like private cars at 53 check points, according to an RTI reply. Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) and the Public Work Development (PWD) had to pay Rs 798.44 crore as "compensation and return" to toll plaza contractors, as per the information obtained by RTI activist Anil Galgali. "Of the 38 toll plazas managed by the PWD, 11 were closed and Rs 226.51 crore paid to contractor as full and final payment," Galgali said quoting the information provided by Under Secretary and Public Information Officer, PWD, Shailendra Borse. Of the 53 plazas maintained by the MSRDC, only one was closed for which the full and final payment return amounted to Rs 168 crore, he said. Towards exemption on light vehicles at 27 toll plazas, PWD paid the contractors Rs 179.69 crore. MSRDC paid the contractors Rs 224.24 crore towards exemption on light vehicles at 26 toll points. A committee was formed by the state government last year to explore the possibility of giving relief to people from the five entry points of Mumbai as well as Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Despite the retirement of additional chief secretary (PWD) Anand Kulkarni who was heading it, the report and recommendations are yet to shape up. As the report was not submitted before Kulkarni's superannuation, Pune-based anti-toll activist Vivek Velankar has appealed to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to suspend the bureaucrat's retirement benefits. Mahant Gyan Das, facing the allegations of misbehaviour and criminal charges, has been removed from the post of the president ofAll India Akhara Parishad (AIAP) and Mahant Narendra Giri elected as its new chief. Now, the prestigious Ujjain Kumbh which is starting from April 22, would be conducted by Mahant Giri to whom the Madhya Pradesh government has granted recognition as the new Akhara Parishad president and invited him to take charges of the arrangements. Administrative officer of Ujjain Kumbh, Avinash Lavaliya in letter to Giri has formally invited him in the capacity of president of Akhara Parishad, AIAP sources said. Speaking from Ujjain over phone, Mahant Giri said "there was angst against Gyan Das among the members of Akhara Parishad due to his behaviour with sadhus and devotees, and his alleged involvement in criminal activities. "He was voted out a year back with majority vote in Akhara Parishad general body election in Ujjain, but not ready to leave," Giri said. Around half-a-dozen criminal cases, including attempt to murder, loot, decoity, economic offence and threatening to kill, have been registered against Das by the sadhus of AIAP in police stations in Ayodhya and Allahabad. Meanwhile Gyan Das, speaking over telephone, termed his removal as a "great loss" and said "they have raised the issue of allegations against me to take my post, I am disappointed. I have lost my recognition. Malaysia today banned the recruitment of new foreign workers after widespread criticism of its decision to bring in 1.5 million Bangladeshis to work in the country, a move that may also affect Indian labourers. "There will not be one, let alone 1.5 million new foreign workers coming into our country,"Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said. Ahmad Zahid, also the country's home minister, said employers who want to hire foreign workers should recruit from among foreign employees already in Malaysia. The move comes after widespread criticism of its decision to bring in 1.5 million Bangladeshis to work in Malaysia, which relies heavily on foreign workers from India, Indonesia and Bangladesh to help out in manufacturing and construction sectors. Most Malaysians are reluctant to work in these sectors. "Employers who need workers will have to apply to legalise existing foreigners in the country without work permits or whose permits have expired," the minister told reporters. Ahmad Zahid said employers had until June 30 to legalise such foreign workers. "The Government is bringing forward the deadline from December 31, because employers continuously ignore the chances given to them," he was quoted as saying in the local media. "Instead, the government is criticised and pressured. If they can't hire anyone, they should just get the Malaysian Employers Federation, Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers and Malaysian Trade Union Congress to help them find locals to do the job," he said sarcastically. Ahmad Zahid said employers and recruitment agents would be dealt with more severely. "We will be pushing for those found guilty of trafficking and harbouring illegal workers to be caned. "Right now, they are not afraid because they think they can get away by paying a fine but that will not be the case anymore," he said. However, the decision, which was made at a Cabinet meeting yesterday, would not involve the domestic help or the maid sector. Firing yet another salvo at the government on the Vijay Mallya issue, Congress today dubbed as "cover-up excuse" CBI's "very strange explanation" that the Lookout notice for the controversial businessman was erroroneously issued. "We have a very strange explanation coming from the Government authorities at the highest level of the CBI purportedly stating that they issued a Lookout Notice by an error. It's not a child's play and they are not casually issued or revoked," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters here. Noting that such notices are not limited to national boundaries, he said it goes beyond and has connectivity with Interpol rules and are circulated across the world. "How is it possible that the CBI is issuing such notices erroneously? Has any disciplinary action been initiated against anyone? The supposedly wrong notice was revoked at the level and instance of the CBI director or at the level of Minister in Charge of the department namely the PM of India?", he asked. Insisting that such explanations raise many questions than answers, he said, "it would be comic, if not tragic that such mysterious, strange explanations are trotted out." "The bottom line is, under the cynosure of press, court proceedings, notices and orders, a person is allowed to depart. A cover-up excuse is trotted out that there was a defective Lookout Notice", he said. Targeting the BJP, he said that the Lookout notice must be seen in continuity. "Yet another part of the same chain is to be noted that Mr. Mallya entered the Rajya Sabha in 2003-2004, it was only with the support of BJP and this is widely known." Besides, he said it's also equally very well known that when banks attached Mallya's valuable properties in Goa, then the CM of Goa and the Government of Goa intervened and stopped the process. "In that comes the very strange pretext of a cover-up about departure on the basis of incorrect or illegal lookout notice and the totality of such circumstances raise serious question marks", he said. On the question of a farmer in Tamil Nadu, who took loan of Rs 3 Lakh for tractor, being attacked by cops and bank employees, he condemned the "highhandeness". "We do believe that highhandedness, throwing the rulebook and all kinds of procedures for a miniscule amount for a common man and allowing elephants to be swallowed as far as big people are concerned is a systemic problem", he added. (REOPENS DEL028) Meanwhile, another senior Congress leader, Ghulam Nabi Azad, also hit out at NDA Government for its alleged involvement in "sending" Mallya abroad and insisted that CBI issued second notice in connection with Mallya episode under "Centre's influence". Azad said CBI had on October 16 last year issued a Lookout notice which, he said, stated that Mallya not be allowed to go abroad and be detained. This notice, the Rajya Sabha Opposition Leader said, was "changed in a month". "So, this was not by mistake (by CBI), but (by) Government influence. CBI will lose its credibility if it makes such mistakes. The first circular of CBI was its own action and the second one was of Government," Azad said. A day after protesters forced Donald Trump to cancel his rally in Chicago, the Republican presidential front-runner today faced another protest as a man tried to reach the stage by breaching the security buffer while he was speaking at a campaign event in Ohio city. The US Secret Service agents, however, immediately scrambled onto the stage and surrounded the Republican presidential candidate at the campaign rally in Dayton, his first public address after the Chicago rally was cancelled due to the protest. Secret Service agents immediately removed the protester. Trump was speaking at the rally when he was briefly surrounded by Secret Service agents, who formed a protective barrier around him. Trump, who continued with his speech after the brief interruption, alleged that by succeeding in stopping him to address the Chicago rally last night, the protestors have infringed upon his freedom of speech. Alleging that the Chicago protest was "planned and "organised" and professionally done, Trump came out in support of his ever increasing supporters by asserting that they did not cause any problem at the Chicago rally. "They were taunted, they were harassed by these other people - by the way, some represented Bernie, our communist friend," Trump said. Referring to the fact that some of the protestors at the Chicago rally were chanting "Bernie, Bernie", Trump urged the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to calm down his supporters. "With Bernie, he should really get up and say to his people, 'stop, stop.' Not me," Trump said. Sanders has condemned the Chicago violence and denied that they were his supporters. Trump cancelled his campaign rally in Chicago citing security concerns after hundreds of people gathered at the arena to protest against his 'politics of hatred' and scuffled with his supporters in the largest-ever demonstration against the Republican presidential front-runner. Addressing the massive rally in Dayton, Trump slammed all those who said that he should take responsibility for the unrest at his rallies and tell them to be nicer. "My people are nice, folks. My people are great," he said amidst loud applause from the supporters. "We have got to change our thinking. Yeah and if there's a group out there, just throw them the hell out," he said, as he noticed a group of protesters at the rally. "We're all together and we want to get along with everybody, but when they have organised, professionally staged wise guys we've got to fight back, we've got to fight back," Trump said. Meanwhile, In a statement, the Trump Campaign said the Chicago Police Department Commander George Devereux was "informed of everything before it happened". Likewise, Secret Service and private security firms were consulted and totally involved, it said. "We have received great credit from everyone for cancelling this event. Nobody was injured and crowds disbanded quickly and peacefully. It has been termed "really good management and leadership under great pressure!" the campaign said. "It would have been easier for Trump to have spoken, but he decided, in the interest of everyone's safety, to postpone the event," the statement said. Following the protest and violence at Chicago rally, both his rivals in the GOP and the opposition Democratic party have slammed him for his "provocative" language at his rallies. "The person most responsible for what happened in Chicago last night is Donald Trump. Time and again we've watched the Republican front-runner rile up his supporters with calls to violence, sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit, usually directed at minorities, and always un-presidential," said Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. "The divisive rhetoric we are seeing should be of grave concern to us all. We all have our differences, and we know many people across the country feel angry," said Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner. Trump's other rivals in the Republican party also slammed him. "When the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that is escalates," said Senator Ted Cruz, who is currently running a distant second to Trump in the Republican presidential race. "I wouldn't say Trump is responsible for the events of last night, but he most certainly in other events has in the past used some pretty rough language and encouraging the crowd, saying things like, "in the good old days we used to beat these people up, or I'll pay your legal bill if you rough them up. So I think he bears some responsibility for the general tone for the things happening," said Marco Rubio, another GOP White House aspirant. Governor John Kasich, another GOP presidential candidate, in a statement blamed Trump for the atmosphere. "Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly," he said. Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, today called on Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh here and apprised him about various activities of her organisation. During the 20-minute meeting, Gates briefed the Home Minister about the ongoing projects of the Foundation in sectors like health, agriculture and rural development. She also told the Home Minister about fresh projects to be initiated by the Foundation in some backward areas covering sectors like education and child and women welfare, official sources said. The Home Minister appreciated the works of the Foundation in India and assured Gates of all necessary help. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is not registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) which is required for foreign organisations to undertake charitable works in India. The Foundation, however, operates as a 'Liaison Office' under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) as approved by the Reserve Bank of India. There have been questions on the Foundation's style of functioning after some reports accused it of favouring some multinational companies. Rating agency Moody's downgraded its outlook for Hong Kong today, citing increasing political riskiness and closer economic ties with China, which is facing a growth slowdown. Moody's changed Hong Kong's outlook from "stable" to "negative" as the semi-autonomous city continues to reel from political unease following mass pro-democracy protests in 2014. The city saw violent street clashes between police and protesters last month and the fate of five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing and later turned up on the mainland, with four now under criminal investigation, is still in question. The case has triggered fears of increasing Chinese interference in the city. "Increasing political linkages are likely to weigh on Hong Kong's institutional strength," Moody's Investors Service said in a statement. "Political risk has risen in Hong Kong in light of ongoing tensions over the implementation of the 'One Country, Two systems' policy," it said, referring to the policy that grants the city freedoms not seen on the mainland. It warned that tensions could rise in the lead-up to an election next year for the city's leader, which it said could "impair the effectiveness of government policies". The vote is the first following a failed political reform package last year that saw pro-democracy lawmakers vote down a proposal that would have opened the ballot for the city's leader to all seven million residents instead of only allowing Beijing-vetted candidates to run. A Hong Kong government spokesman said Moody's comments were "purely speculative and subjective statements without any ground". "There has been no evidence of mainland interference in Hong Kong affairs or Hong Kong institutions losing independence over time," he said in a statement. Moody's report also said risk in China's and financial stability could also undermine the city's economic outlook. "The elevated volatility in Hong Kong's financial markets in recent months has mirrored developments in China's markets, highlighting the strong transmission of changes in risk aversion from China to Hong Kong. Lauding the 'positive' role of CPI(M) in forging an alliance with his party, Bengal Congress president Adhir Chowdhury today said more than 90 per cent Assembly seats in the state would have one-on-one fight with the Trinamool Congress. All 32 seats, which have sitting MLAs of Congress, will fight the poll except Debi Prasad Roy of Alipurduar who had earlier expressed his desire not to contest in case of a Congress-CPI(M) alliance. Chowdhury told reporters that most of the differences over seat adjustment had been sorted out. "The role of the CPI(M) in forging the alliance is very positive, cordial and transparent. Both of us are very flexible on forming the alliance," he said. He, however, pointed out that there might be four to five seats which would witness friendly fights. "The CPI(M) is willing to make sacrifices, but they have alliance partners who also have their say," he said. "Gotham" co-stars Morena Baccarin and Ben McKenzie have welcomed a baby girl, Frances Laiz Setta Schenkkan. The couple have revealed their daughter was born on March 2, reported USA Today. Representatives for the pair said, "Morena and Ben are so happy to welcome baby girl Frances Laiz Setta Schenkkan on March 2. All are happy and healthy and appreciate the well-wishes." The couple's "Gotham" characters, James Gordon and Dr Leslie Thompkins, are also expecting a baby together on-screen with Baccarin explaining that it was "a total coincidence". They were already planning on doing that with (our) characters when I got pregnant. When I told them they were like, 'Okay, great!' and I was like, 'What?' It worked out perfectly." Frances is 37-year-old McKenzie's first child but Baccarin, 36, already has a two-year-old son, Julian, with her estranged husband, Austin Chick. A North Korean submarine is missing, reports said today, as the reclusive state issued a fresh threat of retaliation against US and South Korean forces involved in joint military drills. The unknown class of vessel had been reportedly operating off the North Korean coast earlier in the week when it disappeared. A South Korean defence ministry said Seoul was investigating the reports. Pentagon officials declined to comment on the matter. The US military had been observing the submarine off the North's eastern coast, CNN said, citing three US officials familiar with the incident. American spy satellites, aircraft and ships have been watching as the North Korean navy searched for the missing sub, the report added. The US is unsure if the missing vessel is adrift or whether it has sunk, CNN reported, but officials believe it suffered a failure during an exercise. The US Naval Institute (USNI) News said the submarine was presumed sunk. "The speculation is that it sank", an unidentified US official was quoted as telling the USNI News. "The North Koreans have not made an attempt to indicate there is something wrong or that they require help or some type of assistance, " he added. The incident comes as tensions were further heightened on the Korean peninsular by a fresh threat from Pyongyang. The official KCNA news agency, citing a statement from military chiefs, warned of a "pre-emptive retaliatory strike at the enemy groups" involved in the joint US-South Korean drill. Pyongyang added it planned to respond to the drills with an "operation to liberate the whole of South Korea including Seoul" with an "ultra-precision blitzkrieg". Responding to the statement, South Korea's defence ministry urged Pyongyang to stop making threats or further provocations, according to Yonhap news agency. North Korea's navy operates a fleet of some 70 submarines, most of them being rusting diesel submarines that are capable of little more than coastal defence and limited offensive capabilities. But the old, low-tech submarines still pose substantial threats to South Korean vessels. In 2010, a South Korean corvette was reportedly torpedoed by a North Korean submarine near their sea border. In August last year, Seoul said said 70% of the North's total submarine fleet -- or around 50 vessels -- had left their bases and disappeared from South's military radar, sparking alarm. National Conference (NC) today accused the army of "harassing" the residents living along the ammunition depot in Nagrota area by not allowing them to undertake any construction activity and demanded the depot's relocation. While NC demanded the relocation of the storage facility alleging that the locals were not allowed to carry out any construction activities, the army refuted the charge and said under the Defense Works Act of 1903, no construction can be done in the radius of one kilometre around the boundary of an ammunition depot. "Around 4,000 families living near the ammunition depot in Jandrah area of Nagrota in Jammu district who have leased their land to the Army are being harassed by them as they are not allowed any type of constructions," NC provincial president Devender Singh Rana told reporters here today. He said the people living along the ammunition depot had leased their land to the Army in 1964 and they have been given meagre compensation. "Even today, the Army is paying only Rs 500 per kanal of land and that too has not been paid for the past three years," Rana said, demanding that the force relocate the ammunition depot elsewhere. A Defence spokesman Col S D Goswami said that "under Defense Works Act 1903 published by the Government of India Gazette, no civilian construction can be done within a radius of one kilometre from the boundary of the ammunition depots". As per the notification published by Deputy Commissioner Jammu in May 2011, he said, no construction or dumping of construction material within 1000 yards from outer perimeters was allowed. He said the Deputy Commissioner and the Tehsildar has to demarcate the area and the civil administration has to provide the compensation to the affected people. In the case of Jandrah ammunition depot, the spokesperson said demarcation was pending for the past five years. He said post-Pathankot terror attack, the army has held three meetings to ensure safety in and around the area of the depot. Goswami said the recruitment of labourers was done following a due process and the people who fulfil the laid criteria were appointed. He said that 70 per cent employees in the ammunition depot were from Jammu and only 30 per cent from other areas. Senior NDA government ministers and Chief Ministers of several BJP-ruled states today attended the controversial World Cultural Festival organised by the Art of Living Foundation on the flood plains of river Yamuna. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj attended the event, in which several religious leaders from across the globe were also present. "No religion teaches enmity to others. India is a secular country. It means equality among all religion. It means a Hindu should be a good Hindu, a Muslim should be a good Muslim, a Sikh should be a good Sikh and Christian should be a good Christan. By taking their own path of worship, they respect the faith of others. The World Culture Festival is a brilliant example of secularism," Swaraj said. Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh (Shivraj Singh Chouhan), Maharashtra (Devender Fadnavis) and Chhattisgarh (Raman Singh) also attended the event. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the flood plains, where the event is being organised, was protected because of farmers who have been farming there and this was also a means to protect Yamuna. "I am fortunate that the event is taking place here, in the constituency I represent. This is also a matter of pride for Delhi government," Sisodia said. A simple, non-invasive blood test may allow doctors to determine whether a child suffers from celiac disease - a condition in which the small intestine is hypersensitive to gluten, making it difficult to digest food. The method developed by researchers at University of Granada (UGR) in Spain does not require experienced personnel (although it has to be interpreted by health professionals), is quick (10 minutes), economic (10-12 euros per device) and is less invasive than a blood extraction. Celiac disease is a systemic disease caused by a permanent intolerance to gluten (which can be found in wheat, barley and rye), and it affects people with genetic predisposition. The symptoms are intestinal (intestinal malabsorption, abdominal distension, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, etc) and extra-digestive (skin problems, joint pain, cephalalgia, etc). Silent celiac disease is that which goes unnoticed to the eyes of the doctor because it presents minor symptoms, imperceptible even for the patient. In order to diagnose celiac disease, three things are required - clinical symptomatology, the assessment of celiac disease antibodies present in blood, and a compatible histological study via intestinal biopsy, researchers said. The goal of the research was to assess the prevalence of the silent celiac disease among children aged two to four. For that purpose, the researchers used new devices which allowed to detect the disease markers (auto-antibodies) present in the patient's capillary blood. "A puncture in the finger is enough to take a little drop of blood, which is then put in the device and, in case the subject suffers from the disease, a pink line will appear in the strip (just like in pregnancy tests)," researchers said. A positive outcome of the test will require further confirmation via blood extraction and assessment of the disease antibodies via other methods, but a negative outcome will allow to dismiss, with certainty, being affected by the disease. Researchers detected 6 celiac children among the 198 who participated in the study (which means a very high prevalence of 3 per cent, higher than the European mean). All of them presented no symptoms at all, or minor imperceptible symptoms which did not make their parents consult a pediatrician. The research was published in the Pediatric Research magazine. Newly floated militant outfit Aimol Defence Force (ADF) has claimed responsibility for the shooting of a civilian at Pallel market in Chandel district on March 10, according to a press handout to the media. The Manipur Police is yet to make any arrests in connection with the shooting. Formed in 2015, after two factions developed within the small Aimol ethnic group, the new outfit in the press release said it was forced to form the outfit to protect the small Aimol community of less than 10,000 people. The ethnic group had been facing continuous threats and intimidation from suspected NSCN(IM) militants, which wanted the tribe to be called Aimol Nagas, the police said. The ADF statement termed the shooting of the civilian on March 10 as a "warning" to those who support the steps to convert the ethnic group into Aimol Nagas. French President Francois Hollande said today that the EU must not grant Turkey any concessions on human rights or visas in exchange for guarantees to stem the flow of migrants to Europe. "There cannot be any concessions on the matter of human rights or the criteria for visa liberalisation," Hollande told reporters ahead of the resumption next week of tough negotiations between Turkey and the EU in Brussels. Under a controversial draft agreement reached this week, Turkey would take back all migrants landing illegally in Greece in a bid to reduce their incentive to pay people smugglers for dangerous boat crossings to the Greek islands. In return for every Syrian sent back from Greece, the EU would resettle one Syrian refugee from camps in Turkey -- which is hosting about 2.7 million people who have fled the conflict across the border. The question of human rights in Turkey and visa liberalisation should be "a factor for clarification and transparency in the relations between Turkey and Europe," Hollande said. Earlier this week, the French leader said visa liberalisation for Turkish nationals, slated to go into effect in June, would only take place if Ankara met 72 conditions. Describing Turkey's willingness to readmit refugees and migrants who left illegally for Greece as "very important", he said there could be visa liberalisation but only according to the "roadmap" that had already been outlined. "What has been agreed on is that the principle of visa liberalisation could take place... In June if all the criteria are respected and there are 72 of them," he said, one of which involves the rolling out of biometric ID cards. "If the criteria are not met, the June date will not be met either," he said. Turkey is also demanding six billion USD 6.6 billion in aid, visa-free access for its nationals within Europe's passport-free Schengen zone and for swifter action to process its bid to join the EU. The plan to expel migrants en masse from Greece has sparked international criticism, with the UN's top officials on refugees and human rights questioning whether it would be legal. Officials have also expressed concern over the potential need for compromise with Ankara, as fears grow over freedom of expression and rights abuses under the rule of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Hollande spoke after meeting in Paris today with more than a dozen social democrat leaders from the EU, including Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. said today its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and "liberate" the South in its latest outburst against the annual joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. In a statement carried through state media, the General Staff of the North's Korean People's Army said its frontline units are prepared to strike first if they see signs that American and South Korean troops involved in the drills were attempting to invade the North. The KPA said it will counter the drills by the United States and South Korea it says are aimed at advancing into Pyongyang with plans to "liberate the whole of South Korea including Seoul" and also that it is capable of executing "ultra-precision blitzkrieg" strikes against enemy targets. At the start of the drills on Monday, the North warned of an indiscriminate "pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice" on Washington and Seoul. In response to North's statement, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff called for to stop its threats and "rash behavior" and warned that a provocation from the North would result in the destruction of its highest leadership. has condemned the annual military drills staged by Seoul and Washington in South Korea, calling them preparations for an invasion. The allies say the drills, which this year are described as the biggest ever and follow the North's recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, are defensive and routine. President Barack Obama gave a mocking rebuke today of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for his incendiary language on the campaign trail. At a Democratic fundraising event in Dallas, Texas, Obama took a swipe at Trump's sideline wine label -- just a tiny piece of his sprawling business empire. But the president offered a serious condemnation of the "divisiveness" fomented by Trump on the campaign trail, including his motto "Make America Great Again." "We are great right now," Obama retorted, in remarks that came one day after skirmishes broke out at a scuttled Trump rally in Chicago. "What the folks who are running for office should be focused on is how we can make it even better -- not insults and schoolyard taunts and manufacturing facts, not divisiveness along the lines of race and faith. Certainly not violence against other Americans," Obama said. A Trump campaign event was canceled in Chicago yesterday when throngs of protesters -- many of them blacks and Latinos angered by Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric -- massed outside and inside the venue, mingling and in some cases brawling with the candidate's supporters. Critics warned that Trump's inflammatory language set the tone for the violence, and urged him to tone down the campaign rhetoric. The billionaire businessman today had two more huge gatherings schedule in the heartland state of Ohio, amid fears of fresh violence. President sided with law enforcement in the debate pitting encryption and personal privacy against national security, arguing that authorities need access to data on electronic devices because the "dangers are real." Appearing at an annual tech festival in the Texas capital, Obama delivered his most extensive comments to date on an issue being played out in federal court. Apple, one of the world's largest technology companies, is challenging the government's request that it help the FBI access data on a cellphone that was used in the San Bernardino, California, attack that killed 14 people. The issue has roiled the tech industry and divided Obama's advisers, but the president seemed to side Friday with law enforcement despite also saying the matter would not be settled by adopting an "absolutist view." Obama restated his commitment to strong encryption but also raised the question of how would authorities catch child pornographers or disrupt terrorist plots if smartphones and other electronic devices are designed in ways that keep the data on them locked away forever. "My conclusion so far is that you cannot take an absolutist view on this," Obama said. "So if your argument is strong encryption, no matter what, and we can and should, in fact, create black boxes, then that I think does not strike the kind of balance that we have lived with for 200, 300 years. "And it's fetishizing our phones above every other value. And that can't be the right answer," he said. At the end of a nearly hour-long, question-and-answer session with Evan Smith, CEO and editor in chief of The Texas Tribune, Smith asked the president "where do you come down" on the privacy versus security debate. He was not asked to comment on the dispute with Apple. Obama said government shouldn't be able to "just willy nilly" access smartphones that are full of very personal data. But at the same time, while asserting that he's "way on the civil liberties side," Obama said "there has to be some concession" to be able to get the information in certain cases. Apple and the federal government are embroiled in a legal fight over Apple's refusal to help the FBI access the iPhone used in San Bernardino. A high-level monitoring committee has been formed to undertake a monthly review of the implementation of the projects funded under the Rs 80,000 crore Prime Minister's Package in . "Governor N N Vohra has approved the formation of the Committee to undertake review of the projects funded under The Aggregative Multi-sector Economic & Infrastructure Rebuilding (TAMIER)- Plan 2015-2020," an official spokesperson said. The Chief Secretary would head the committee and the Administrative Secretary of Planning and Development will be its member secretary, he said. The committee will oversee the implementation of projects, monitor funds flow to ensure optimal utilisation, address any other issues, and keep the Governor informed on regular basis. The TAMEIR Plan was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 7 last year during his visit to Srinagar. With the Centre's support, the Plan will implement humanitarian and multi-sectoral growth initiatives in the state. The plan includes provision of relief to the families, affected in the September 2014 floods, in the form of enhanced ex-gratia relief, rehabilitation package for one time settlement of refugees from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Chhamb; rehabilitation package for return of Kashmiri Pandits. Disaster management includes a comprehensive flood control project for river Jhelum and its tributaries. Social Infrastructure includes creation of two AIIMS like institutions for healthcare in the state, establishment of IIM and IIT in Jammu, training to a lakh youth for self employment, enhanced rate of remuneration for SPOs, establishment of 5 IR Battalions and undertaking the Pashmina Promotion programme are in the plan. The other members of the committee would be the administrative secretaries of the departments of forests, relief and rehabilitation, home, housing and urban development, power development, finance, public works (R&B), science and technology, higher education, agriculture production, health and medical education, tourism, and revenue. Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today said Punjab government's decision to denotify the land acquired for Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal project was not only "illegal" but against the spirit of "federal structure". The senior Congress leader said the Badal dispensation's move also amounts to "disobeying" the country's judicial system. However, he assured the BJP-led Haryana government that Congress would "cooperate" with it on water-sharing issue as a responsible political outfit. "The decision of Punjab government to denotify the land acquired for constructing SYL canal is illegal and deserve strong criticism," Hooda said in a statement here. "It is right that the land acquired for SYL canal is with Punjab government but it was Haryana government which paid the compensation amount," Hooda claimed asking how could Punjab government have taken the decision "unilaterally." "Everybody knows the (SYL) matter is in the Supreme Court and the verdict on the same can come anytime. Therefore, this (Punjab's) move is the contempt of the court," he said. "Because with such decision, states will not only start stopping water passing through their areas to other states but will also consider putting up blockades at roads in order to preserve them as their right," Hooda said. "Today, SAD-BJP is ruling in Punjab and NDA at the Centre. It is important for Haryana government to take this matter as a challenge and seek the Centre's intervention in water-sharing issue," he said. Punjab Cabinet yesterday gave nod to introduce the Punjab Satluj Yamuna Link Canal (Rehabilitation and Re-vesting of Proprietary Rights) Bill, 2016 in the state assembly to denotify and return 5,376 acres of land acquired for the construction of SYL canal to their owners. A 45-year-old Indian-origin dean of a prestigious US law school has resigned from his post, days after a lawsuit was filed against him by his executive assistant alleging that he sexually harassed her over a period of several months. Sujit Choudhry, had initially taken an indefinite leave of absence after the lawsuit was filed earlier this week but the Berkeley Law School announced that he had resigned from his post and his resignation was accepted on Thursday. Choudhry had also "admitted" in a campus investigative report, dated July 2015, that he had hugged and kissed his executive assistant but there was no "sexual intent" to his conduct towards her. The school admitted that criticism against it for not removing Choudhry from his post immediately after the allegations had surfaced is legitimate. The victim filed the lawsuit this week in Alameda County Superior Court in California that sues him for sexual harassment, failure to prevent harassment, retaliation, infliction of emotional distress and assault. The lawsuit alleges that Choudhry hugged and kissed her almost daily and the harassment began in September 2014 until March 2015. The July 2015 campus investigative report corroborated the claims made by the victim and also said that Choudhry "admitted" to hugging, kissing her on the cheek, touching her shoulders and arms from behind while she sat at her desk, squeezing her arm when he passed by her desk and holding her hands to his waist. He however "defends" his actions saying there was no "sexual intent" to his conduct towards her and instead it was a way to express gratitude" to Sorrell, the investigation report said. The report, which did not name the assistant, said that she had written a six page email in March 2015 to Choudhry detailing her objections to "rude and demeaning conduct and sexual harassment" by him towards her, "including unwelcome touching and kissing." The investigation report had concluded that "By a preponderance of the evidence," Choudhry had "violated the sexual harassment provisions of the UC Policy on Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence." UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Provost Claude Steele said in a statement that they were wrong to not to take action against Choudhry even though the investigative report had supported the victims claims. "The dean's resignation is an outcome in the best interests of Berkeley Law and the university as a whole. At the same time we are under no illusion that a resignation could or even should bring this matter and broader, related issues to a close," they said. "It is clear, as we heard during our meeting with law school faculty this morning, that the initial decision not to remove the dean from his position is the subject of legitimate criticism," they added. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "explanation" over how business tycoon Vijay Mallya could leave the country which he claimed was not possible without "approval" from the top. "Since CBI directly reports to PM, PM owes an answer why Mallya was allowed to leave India. CBI couldn't have allowed without approval from top," Kejriwal tweeted. Kejriwal's comments come amid a raging controversy over UB Group Chairman Mallya leaving India amid continuing efforts by banks to recover dues totalling over Rs 9,000 crore of unpaid loans and interest from him. Kejriwal also attacked the Centre for having "back stabbed" jewellers by proposing excise duty on non-silver jewellery items. "Modi Govt has back stabbed Jewellers. Modi govt doing same what UPA was doing," Kejriwal said in another tweet, referring to an old tweet of Modi where he had asked the UPA government to roll back excise duty on non-branded gold jewellery. Meanwhile, a strike by jewellers and bullion traders on the issue continued for a 11th straight day today. Union Finance Ministry has clarified that the jewellers only with turnover of more than Rs 12 crore will be liable to pay one per cent excise duty. Prime Minister Saturday pitched for further quota reforms at IMF to reflect global economic realities and give India and other emerging economies larger say in the working of multilateral bodies. Modi said the long pending quota revisions agreed in 2010 have finally come into effect but "even now, IMF quotas do not reflect the global economic realities." "Change in quotas is not an issue of increasing the 'power' of certain countries. It is an issue of fairness and legitimacy. The belief that quotas can be changed, is essential for the fairness of the system," he said addressing a conference on Advancing Asia, co-hosted by India and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). For poor nations to respect the legitimacy of such institutions, they must be able to aspire and to hope, he said. "I am, therefore, very happy that the IMF has decided to finalize the next round of quota changes by October 2017." The Prime Minister said the quota reforms implemented in January reflects the emerging economies' greater weight in the world economy. "This will give them (emerging economies) more say in collective decisions in the IMF," he said while lauding IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde's role in persuading all members to ratify the decisions taken in 2010. Hoping that IMF would be able to build on this success, Modi said, "Reform of global institutions has to be an ongoing process. It must reflect changes in the global economy, and the rising share of emerging economies." IMF in January announced implementation of its long- pending quota reforms, which will give more voting rights to emerging economies such as India and China in the functioning of the multilateral institution. India's quota in IMF rose to 2.7% from 2.44% and its voting share increased to 2.6% from 2.34%. For the first time, four emerging market countries of the BRIC bloc - Brazil, China, India, and Russia - will be among the 10 largest members of IMF. Other top 10 members include the US, Japan, and the four largest European countries - France, Germany, Italy and the UK. Modi said India has always had great faith in multi-lateralism. "We believe that as the world becomes more complex, the role of multilateral institutions will increase." The country was represented at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, which gave birth to the IMF. India's delegate was R K Shanmukham Chetty, who later became independent India's first Finance Minister. "Our ties, therefore, are more than 70 years old. We are a Founding Member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank. We are confident that these banks will play an important role in the development of Asia," he said. IMF has built an immense stock of economic expertise, he said, adding that apart from advice, the Fund can help in building capacity for policy making. Modi announced a new partnership with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India and the IMF to set up the South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Centre. The Centre will provide training to government and public sector employees and enhance their skills and improve the quality of their policy inputs. It will also provide technical assistance to governments and public institutions, he said. Six backcountry skiers died today in an avalanche in the Italian Alps, others were rescued and emergency workers were still looking for more possible victims, authorities said. Helicopters were flying to the remote location - above 3,000 meters on Monte Nevoso - as search-and-operations continued at the site. Monte Nevoso is 3,358 meters high in the Alto Adige region of Italy near the Austrian border. Rafael Kostner, the head of the rescue operation, told the agency ANSA that dogs were flown up to the avalanche site to search for other victims and that some survivors had been brought back down along with the bodies of victims. He did not have an exact number for the survivors. The dead were among a group of backcountry skiers who climb above tree line to the mountain crest and then ski down. It was not clear how many were in the group or what triggered the avalanche. The high altitude and the number of people involved were complicating the rescue, Kostner said. "The helicopters are having difficulty safely reaching altitudes above 3,000 meters," Kostner was quoted as saying. "Therefore, they fly with very little fuel and all unnecessary gear is left on the ground. A day after one of the units of Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) near Surat in Gujarat was shut down after heavy water leakage, a team of experts Saturday began a probe to identify the cause of the even as officials reaffirmed that there was no radioactive release at the site. Two experts from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) are at the site to assist KAPS officials in the probe. The experts have been deputed for an independent assessment of the situation at the affected plant, which continues to remain shut for the second day today after the leakage. One of the two 220 MW units of KAPS was shut down after leakage of heavy water, which is used for cooling off the nuclear reactor core, reported around 9 am Friday. A temporary site emergency was also declared as a measure of safety, although the officials said that there was no radioactive leak and all the workers were safe. "We have carried out a thorough radiation survey and there is no change in radiation level at the plant and into public domain (outside the plant) as of today. There is no increase in radiation level. This confirms no radioactive release," site director KAPS, Lalit K jain, told PTI. "Now that we are assured on the front of containing the leakage, our focus will be on identifying the cause of the leakage. The plant remains totally shut down, and further normalisation of the plant is currently being carried out, with two experts from AERB assisting us," Jain said. The radiation levels inside the plant and in the nearby areas are being regularly monitored, he said. In July last year, another unit (Unit II) of the power station had been shut down due to maintenance issue. KAPS 1 and 2 consist of two units of pressurised heavy water reactors of 220 MW each. The AERB had yesterday clarified that all the safety functions of the reactor were working satisfactorily and there has not been any "abnormal release" of radioactivity outside the plant or radiation exposures as a result of the incident. The KAPS, located on the border of Surat and Tapi districts near Vyara town of Tapi, is run by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). According to KAPS website, the power station has two generation units of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) that were commissioned in early 90s. Yesterday's incident has led to an alarm in nearby areas with the district administration in Surat, where the plant is located, and neighbouring Tapi district swung into action and sought details from plant officials after learning about the leakage. This is the second incident when the KAPS had to declare "site emergency". The first such emergency situation was declared in June 1994 when evacuation situation arose after flood water entered the condenser pit and turbine building basement, affecting the plant. The National Commission for Scheduled Caste has sent a show-cause notice to JNU over one of its Professor's alleged remarks calling Dalits and Muslim teachers "anti-national". The Professor who is the head of one of the JNU schools, has made the alleged comments in an interview published by a website. "A complaint has been received by the National Commission for Scheduled Caste and the it has decided to investigate the matter in pursuance of the powers conferred upon it. You are hereby requested to submit the facts and information and the action taken on allegations/matter within five days of this notice," the letter sent to JNU Vice Chancellor on March 8 said. The varsity administration was unavailable for comments in this regard. A letter was also sent to the Delhi Police Commissioner asking him to take action against the professor. The letter sent to the commissioner said that "it is a very serious matter and Delhi Police may register a criminal complaint into the matter." "I have not received the copy of the letter so far. Once I receive it, we will examine the legalities of the matter and take action accordingly," a senior police official said. On being asked "how many teachers and students in JNU are anti-national" in her interview to the website, the professor had said, "Teachers are hardly 10 but they portray as if everybody is with them. You think a teacher in an institution like JNU would be so stupid as to back anti-national slogans? These are just five or six persons and they are Dalits and Muslims. They have their grudges." The faculty member talks about anti-national activities in JNU, the family background of students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar and another student Umar Khalid. The teacher had also alleged about foreign funding to anti-nationals while claiming that Bijnore, from where one of the arrested JNU student hails, is a "den of terrorism and Islamic State." According to the professor, one student still in custody believes in "strong Kashmiriyat". Election Commission's proposal seeking two years imprisonment for those furnishing incorrect details in poll affidavits is under the process of Union Law Ministry, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi said here today. "The Commission has proposed that if there is any attempt to conceal relevant information...This should be criminalised and there should be a punishment of two years for concealing or giving false information in (poll) affidavit," Zaidi said while addressing 12th Annual National Conference on Electoral and Political Reforms. It was organised by National Election Watch (NEW), and Association for Democratic Reforms. He said there have been attempts to ensure that candidates furnish full information about their antecedents, criminal antecedents in particular, adding if candidates have not declared their criminal antecedents fully and concealed something, voters get only half truth which is in fact more harmful. "To plug the loophole, the Commission has proposed that any concealment of information must be punishable with two years' imprisonment. The Law Commission has also endorsed it and the matter is under process of Law Ministry," the CEC said. He further said electoral trusts at present are not prohibited from receiving foreign funds and since they are giving money to political parties, therefore, indirectly even foreign funds can go to political parties while it is prohibited for parties (to receive such funds). "Quid pro quo of vested interests through these trusts and their funding is not ruled out," he noted, adding there are no restrictions on these trusts on receiving foreign funds. "We have taken up (this matter)...I have learnt that the Ministry of Law and Finance are working together to plug this loophole to bar electoral trusts from receiving foreign funds. Therefore, the Commission suggested that electoral trusts should be prohibited from receiving foreign funds and we understand that the matter is under examination," Zaidi said. NEW, a congregation of over 1200 Civil Society groups across India, and ADR, a citizen led non-political and non- governmental organisation has been working with an objective of improving democracy and governance in India. The story of has been told and retold through TV series, movies, cartoons and animation films multiple times but now three young filmmakers are adapting the classic in English to cater to the global audience. Directors Vineet Sinha and Sean Graham with Creative Director Ronnie Allman from the US want to recreate as they feel Indian mythological story need to be told to the world. With the help of latest technology, the makers claim the film is going to be at par with Hollywood movies like "Lord of the Rings" and "Planet of the Apes." "Hollywood, Japan and China make and market their stories such as Batman, Superman, Star Wars and Pokemon to the whole world. But Indian stories are not as well known," Vineet told PTI. Director Sean Graham says they want to narrate the tale of in 3D and Imax. "Considering India's most expensive films cost about $25 million, so for making Ramayana the cost would be twice of that. We need studio level support to make that possible." For Vineet and Sean, the biggest challenge is to balance the expectations of the audience both in India and abroad. "We want this film to appeal to the fantasy action adventure audience who will watch 'Lord of the Rings', 'Planet of the Apes'. We are also making sure people at home (India) don't feel too distanced with our portrayal," Vineet said. According to Ronnie Allman, creating the mythological era would be a huge challenge. "Creating a world that is thousands of years old means heavy designs. We have to make sure we are keeping true to the time, while also adding our own spin on things. "The biggest challenge has also been the most fun to figure out. How do you get a Rakshasa (demons) to fly in the air after being hit by Hanuman's gada (mace)," he added. The story of "Ramayana" has been narrated to audience several times but the director duo insists the portrayal of 'Hanuman' and 'Ravana' will be exciting for people to watch. "We believe he (Ravana) was a very wise, rational, caring, creative, strict and humorous ruler. We see his ten heads as ten human characteristics that everyone possesses," Sean said. Vineet thinks, portrayal of 'Hanuman' (Lord Ram's devotee) will excite everyone the most. "He is a blend of expertly crafted prosthetics with very light CGI (computer generated imagery)," he adds. The duo are looking forward to cast mainly Indian actors and shoot it in English. The movie will be dubbed in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, French and several other Indian and global languages. "We want most of the key cast to be Indian, while characters like 'Hanuman', 'Angad', 'Kumbhkarna' should be whoever can pull off the complexity of having motion capture, prosthetics, and CGI the best," Vineet said. The makers are looking to raise Rs 50 lakhs by crowdfunding on Wishberry.In soon. Human rights platform 'Aamra Aakranto' (We Are Attacked) today said it would field two candidates in the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal as independents. The two candidates are: Ambikesh Mahapatra, a professor of Jadavpur University, and Pratima Dutta, wife of slain Trinamool Congress leader from Howrah Tapan Dutta, former Supreme Court judge Ashok Ganguly said. While Mahapatra would contest from Behala (east), Dutta would file her nomination from Domjur in Howrah. Ganguly addressing reporters here said that people and democracy in the state were under attack. The former SC judge, who was ousted from the West Bengal Human Rights Commission following a controversy, said that people were not being able to register their complaints even with the police. Under such circumstances, he said, it was time the people got together to defeat the "tyrannical rule" of the ruling party (read Trinamool Congress) and also lauded the alliance between the Left and Congress parties. Mahapatra, the convener of 'Aamra Aakranto', was arrested for circulating a cartoon on Facebook, soon after Dinesh Trivedi was asked to resign as Railway minister in 2012, which depicted a sequence from the famous Satyajit Ray film "'Sonar Kella', touching a raw nerve in the Trinamool Congress. Dutta registered her protest against her husband's death which, she alleged, was the handiwork of the Trinamool Congress. Saudi police say they have tracked down and killed six men wanted for the murder of a counter-terrorism security officer. The Interior Ministry said yesterday that police encircled the suspects in the northwestern area of Ha'il and, after warnings to surrender, killed them in a shootout. The ministry had said on February 27 that six male relatives of Special Forces Sgt Badr Hamdi al-Rashidi took advantage of family links to lure him to a remote area and kill him. Police released the suspects' photos, names and ages, which ranged from 18 to 32. Soon after that, a video emerged of the suspects purportedly declaring their allegiance to the Islamic State group and shooting dead the officer beside a highway. The Associated Press could not verify the video's authenticity. Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma today praised Sri Sri Ravi Shankar for organising the World Culture Festival, which raised the heckles of green activists, saying it is a "matter of pride" that the spiritual guru has brought the whole world at one place. "We really appreciate the initiative of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. He has brought the whole world at a place in Delhi. It's a matter of pride for all of us," he said. The three-day cultural extravaganza, which started yesterday, is being attended by thousands of people and delegates from a number of countries. Being organised by Ravi Shankar's The Art of Living Foundation (AOL), the festival, however, has been embroiled in controversy as environmentalists alleged that the event has damaged the ecology of Yamuna flood plains and demanded that it be stopped. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had on Wednesday asked AOL to pay Rs 5 crore as environmental compensation while clearing decks for the event. However, yesterday the NGT asked them to pay Rs 25 lakh and the rest in next three weeks time after the AOL counsel said it was an NGO and not in a position to pay the amount in such a short period of time. The Culture Ministry also came under attack for providing funds for organising the World Culture Festival. However, Sharma had said financial support was given to AOL as part of "routine" grant to organisations promoting art and culture and not for organising the particular event. To mobilise support of Sikhs for Samajwadi Party in the 2017 state assembly polls, UP Cabinet Minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia has taken an initiative to woo the members of the community living abroad. Noting the "strong presence" of Sikhs in 70 assembly seats, Ramoowalia said a campaign would be launched with the help of community members living abroad through social and other media ahead of the assembly polls. "Units of UP NRI Sabha have been constituted in Canada and US," he told reporters, citing the presence of Sikhs from Uttar Pradesh in these countries. He said Sikhs living abroad would be asked to handle the command of 2017 polls and campaign in favour of SP on social media like Facebook and Twitter. These teams would start functioning two months before the assembly polls, Ramoowalia, UP Jail Minister, said. He added that Sikhs from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi would also be involved in the campaign to garner support of the community. The strike by a section of workers at Tata Motors' Sanand plant in Gujarat continued for the 24th day today, with the protestors threatening to launch a state-wide agitation. Over two dozen trade union bodies, including the All India Trade Union Congress, Indian National Trade Union Congress, Hind Mazdoor Sabha and New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), are backing them, the workers said. They also claimed that the government was using the police to subdue the workers rather than attempting mediation through labour department officials. "The state labour department has been rendered dysfunctional because of vacancies. In their place, the collector and police are being used to subdue the workers," NTUI member Ashwin Roy said. "Police are not allowing workers to hold demonstration peacefully and the state government is misusing the Industrial Disputes Act to suppress the agitation. After Monday's demonstration in front of Collector's office, we will launch the agitation at the state level," Roy said. District Collector Rajkumar Beniwal is trying to mediate between the company and the workers. In a statement today, said the company recognised and respected the workers' right to form a union. "All workmen other than those suspended on charges of indiscipline should resume duty. We continue to engage in discussions with workmen within legal framework," it said. Some 420 workers at the plant went on strike last month to protest suspension of their colleagues. The Gujarat government has declared the strike illegal. The company first suspended two workers for indiscipline, and later another 26 workers for allegedly damaging new vehicles at the plant, which manufactures the Nano car, during their protest. Doctors at a private hospital here performed a reverse shoulder replacement on a 27-year-old Afgan man who had broken his shoulder joint in a bomb blast in that country, providing fresh movement in the foreigner's arm. "The shoulder of the patient (Gulam Taraq) was badly injured and the cup and the ball was also damaged when he visited the hospital in February. The doctors in Afghanistan were unable to treat him and as referred by a friend he travelled to India," said Orthopedic Surgeon Dr Kaushal Kant Mishra of Primus Super-Specialty Hospital. Tests and investigations indicated that normal surgery would not be beneficial as the case was severe. The doctors decided to attempt the procedure for a reverse shoulder replacement, surgery for which took place on February 19. "Reverse Shoulder Replacement is designed specifically for use in shoulders that have a deficient rotator cuff and arthritis or complex fractures as well as other difficult shoulder reconstructions," said Mishra. Such operation, he said, is meant for people in older age when the rotator cuff gets damaged naturally but in such accident cases the one at a very young age went through this surgery so that they can lead a normal life. "Now, after the surgery, the patient is able to move his arm normally and in the span of three months he will be fit to do all his routine work," said Dr Kant. UNDP administrator Helen Clark today met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and discussed a range of issues including implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and combating climate change. She also lauded India's role on the board of the UNDP and said it was the second biggest contributor to the agency among G-77 countries. Clark, a former Prime Minister of New Zealand, also complimented India for its increasing capabilities in reducing damages caused by natural disasters. On her part, Swaraj said India had started working on seven out of the 17 SDG goals with concrete policies and programmes with particular emphasis on issues of sanitation and gender equality. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his reply to the President's address had also called for a special day in each of our Parliament sessions devoted to discussions on SDGs alone. Discussions also touched on climate change issues and outcome of the COP-21 in Paris. They also discussed steps required for moving from Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Swaraj also briefed her on the International Solar Alliance whose Secretariat had already been set up in India. The UNDP administrator mentioned natural disasters as posing the biggest threat to SDGs and in this context, she lauded India's Disaster Risk Reduction capabilities, officials said. A Syrian Islamist rebel group on today shot down a regime warplane over a village in central Hama province, a monitoring group said. A pro-government Facebook acknowledged that a MiG-21 warplane went down over Kafr Nabuda but said it was due to "technical difficulties", denying it had been shot down. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Ahrar al-Sham fired two heat-seeking missiles at the military aircraft flying over Kafr Nabuda. "The first missile missed but the second one struck the plane," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. He said the jet fighter crashed in government-held territory but that the fate of its crew remained unknown. The pro-government Facebook said the pilot of the MiG-21 "managed to eject safely" and was rescued by Syrian government forces. Jihadist groups and rebel fighters have brought down government warplanes several times. In January 2015, the Islamic State group shot down a regime aircraft over Damascus province, killing the pilot. The Syrian government today said the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad remains a "red line" just two days ahead of renewed talks aimed at ending the conflict. The UN-brokered negotiations in Geneva are the latest push by the international community to find a solution to Syria's five-year war, which has killed more than 270,000 people. Both the government and the main opposition group, the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee, have agreed to attend the talks after the last round collapsed in February. Chief opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush and HNC delegation head Asaad al-Zoabi were in Geneva today, AFP correspondents in the Swiss city said. "The regime was counting on the opposition not to come to Geneva... But it is here, and it will have a united stance, vision, and negotiating strategy," HNC delegation member Hassan Abdel Azim said. The HNC has repeatedly called for Assad's departure at the start of any transitional period, but Syria's foreign minister said that was out of the question. "We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency... Bashar al-Assad is a red line," Walid Muallem told a Damascus conference. "If they continue with this approach, there's no reason for them to come to Geneva," Muallem said. He said the government delegation would go to Switzerland on tomorrow. UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said the meetings in Geneva would not last more than 10 days. The negotiations would cover the formation of a new government, a fresh constitution and UN-monitored presidential and parliamentary elections within 18 months, the envoy said. However, Muallem said De Mistura had "no right" to discuss future presidential elections. "Neither he nor anyone else, whoever they may be, has the right to discuss presidential elections," Muallem insisted. "This right is exclusively for the Syrian people." Muallem said the negotiations would aim to form a "unity government" which would then appoint a committee to either write a new constitution or amend the existing one. "Then we will have a referendum for the Syrian people to decide on it," he said, adding that a federal division of Syria was not an option. The HNC has also insisted on Syria's territorial unity, but says talks must create a "transitional governance body with full executive powers". Chief opposition negotiator Alloush said Muallem's comments were "ridiculous and show that the regime is not serious about the political process". The Syrian government will send a delegation to Geneva to take part in UN-sponsored indirect peace talks with the opposition but has rejected the UN envoy's call for presidential elections to be held in the next 18 months. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told reporters that the government team will head to Geneva tomorrow but will not stay more than 24 hours if the opposition does not show up. The talks are scheduled to begin Monday. The last round of indirect talks collapsed on February 3 over a Russian-backed government offensive in Aleppo. The new round of negotiations comes amid a two-week partial cease-fire that has mostly held. The High Negotiations Committee, a Saudi-backed umbrella opposition group, said it will attend the talks and press for a transitional governing body with full executive powers in which President Bashar Assad and his associates would have no role. It also wants the restructuring of Syrian security forces. The dispute over the fate of Assad has been the main obstacle in previous rounds of talks. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has called for presidential elections in the next 18 months, but al-Moallem dismissed the idea. "Neither he nor anyone else has the right to talk about presidential elections. This is an exclusive right of the Syrian people," the foreign minister said. When asked about the opposition's demands for a transitional body with full executive powers, al-Moallem said "if this is what they think, I advise them not to come to the negotiations so that they don't make us tired and we don't make them tired." Al-Moallem then turned to the head of the delegation, Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, and said: "Bashar. This is a red line." Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than four decades, was elected to a new seven-year term in 2014 in an election boycotted by the armed opposition, which controls large parts of the country. Syria is set to hold parliamentary elections next month. Syria's conflict began five years ago with mostly peaceful protests calling for political reform. A brutal government crackdown led to the rise of an insurgency and a full-blown civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced half the country's population. "We are optimistic that we have begun to come out of the crisis," al-Moallem said, referring to recent battlefield advances by government forces with the support of Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group. Three persons were arrested for allegedly desecrating religious books in a gurdwara here, police said today. The accused, identified as Prem Titu, Raju Masih and Shamsher, also stole money from the donation box, SHO Police Station, Matewal, Mukhtyar Singh said here, adding that they were criminals and a number of theft and loot cases had been registered against them. The incident occurred in the wee hours at a gurdwara located at village 'Ramdiwali Musalmanna' falling under police station Matewal nearly 25 km from here. The accused were nabbed by villagers and handed over to police. Last year, Punjab had witnessed a series of sacrilege incidents, sparking protests in different parts of the state. Tributes were paid to former Union Defence Minister and Maharashtra's first Chief Minister Yashwantrao Chavan on his birth centenary today. In Mumbai, CM Devendra Fadnavis offered floral tributes to the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra. At Karad in Chavan's native Satara district, tributes were paid to the leader at Preeti Sangam, the confluence of Krishna and Koyna rivers where his memorial stands. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton today accused Donald Trump of running an "ugly" and divisive rhetoric campaign, which she said is a "political arson". Clinton called the heated protests last night at the Republican front-runner's rally in Chicago "deeply disturbing." "The ugly, divisive rhetoric we are hearing from Donald Trump and the encouragement of violence and aggression is wrong, and it's dangerous," Clinton told her supporters in St Louis, Missouri at a campaign rally. "If you play with matches, you're going to start a fire you can't control. That's not leadership. That's political arson," Clinton alleged. She was speaking to about 100 campaign volunteer, local media reported. Trump was forced to cancel his campaign rally in Chicago after hundreds of people gathered at the arena to protest against his 'politics of hatred' and scuffled with his supporters in the largest-ever demonstration against the Republican presidential frontrunner. Delhi Police have arrested two persons for allegedly murdering a 60-year-old businessman over a parking dispute. The accused have been identified as Vikram Rana and his associate Shri Krishan, both residents of Haryana, DCP (Outer) Vikramjit Singh said. On January 27, the police found the body of a man with several bullet injuries at Samaipur Badli area, following which a case of murder was registered. The man was later identified as Gulshan Rai Thakkar, a businessman residing in KN Katju Marg in outer Delhi who was reported missing since December 2015. Later, some locals told the police that they had spotted Thakkar a few times even after he was reported missing and they suspected that he was involved with a particular infamous gang in Haryana, police said. With further investigation, the police zeroed in on Rana and, based on a tip-off, arrested him on Thursday. Rana disclosed the name of his associate, Krishan, who was arrested the next day. During interrogation, it emerged that around one year ago, a fight broke out between the families of Rana and Thakkar over the issue of parking in the street near their house. One evening, a fight broke out between the families, during which Thakkar slapped Rana's father. When Rana charged Thakkar for his act, another scuffle broke out during which Rana's father bit Thakkar's arm. The police was soon informed and the matter was settled for the moment, but Rana still held a grudge, police said. On December 19, 2015, Rana left home and joined a gang in Haryana with which Thakkar had some connections. He started living with the gang members and took help from Krishan for the logistics needed for his mission. On January 27, Rana along with another associate, Sandeep, who is still at large, allegedly shot dead Thakkar at Haryana's Sirsa and dumped his body at a secluded spot in Samaipur Badli. Two BSF jawans were killed and four others injured today in a gun-battle with naxals in Kanker district of Chhattishgarh, the second attack in as many days by the Left wing extremists. The encounter occurred around 2:30 AM when the Naxals attacked a squad ofBSFand district force which was undertaking a special operation in the interior forests of Bande police station area of the district, Kanker Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Jayant Vaishnav told PTI. "Two constables--Rakesh Nehra and Vijay Kumar-- belonging to 122nd battalion of BSF succumbed to their injuries while being airlifted to Raipur. Four other injured have been shifted to Raipur and admitted at Ramkrishna Care Hospital," the DSP said. A joint squad of BSF's 117thand 122ndbattalion along with district force had launched the operation from Chhotebethiya camp of BSF in Pakhanjore region, located around 300 kms away from the state capital. When the security forces reached near a river in the dense forest of Becha village, Naxals opened indiscriminate fire on them leaving the six jawans injured, the DSP said, adding two of them succumbed to injuries. The encounter lasted an hour and later the Naxalsfled into the dense forests, he added. Additional forces have been sent to the area, he said. The attack came a day after a CRPF jawan was killed and four others, including two Deputy Commandants, were injured in an IED blast in Naxal-hit Sukma district. According to police, the Naxals have put up posters calling for a one-day Bastar-bandh today in protest against thealleged fake encounter and surrender of tribals in the region. Two personal security officers of former councillor Krishan Pehelwan were shot dead outside his house in southwest Delhi's Najafgarh area, a month after his brother, who was an ex-MLA, was murdered. The incident occurred last night when a private function had been organised at the former councillor's place, police said. A heated argument broke out between the victims, who were personal security men of Pehelwan, and a group of youths, after which the two were shot dead, an official said, adding teams have been formed to arrest the culprits at the earliest. In March last year, Pehelwan's brother Bharat Singh, who was a former MLA, was shot dead by assailants, an incident which was fallout of an old gangwar in the area. Police has ruled out gangwar in last night's shooting and said that some of the accused have been identified. The UN Security Council today approved its first-ever resolution tackling the escalating problem of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers who act as predators when sent to protect vulnerable civilians in some of the world's most volatile areas. The United Nations has been in the spotlight for months over allegations of child rape and other sexual abuses by its peacekeepers, especially those based in Central African Republic and Congo. The UN says there were 69 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers in 2015, with an additional 25 allegations so far this year. The resolution was approved by a vote of 14-0 with Egypt abstaining after a last-minute amendment it proposed that would have weakened the text was defeated. The US-drafted resolution endorses Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's plan for reform, including his decision to repatriate military or police units "where there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse." It also asks Ban to replace contingents where allegations are not properly investigated, perpetrators are not held accountable or the secretary-general is not informed on the progress of investigations. The Egyptian amendment would have required that all three conditions are met before a military or police unit is sent home, not just one of them as now required. It's up to the home country of the soldier or police officer to conduct the investigation and determine the punishment if allegations of sexual abuse or exploitation are proven. The United States, the biggest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, said it wanted the UN's most powerful body to send a strong signal that it will not tolerate the escalating problem. "To the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, we pledge that we will do better," US Ambassador Samantha Power said after the vote. "We will do better to ensure that the blue helmets that we send as your protectors will not become perpetrators." Secretary-General Ban called the resolution "a significant step in our collective efforts to combat the terrible damage caused to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse" and pledged to ensure protection and support for those who have been abused, his spokesman said. More than 100,000 troops and police are deployed in the UN's far-flung peacekeeping operations, the vast majority from developing countries. The United Nations reimburses troop contributing countries for salaries and provides allowances for peacekeepers. The UN Security Council has adopted a resolution that calls for the repatriation of entire peacekeeping units whose soldiers face allegations of sexual abuse while serving under the UN flag. It was the first time that the council has approved measures to address the rise in troubling allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers deployed worldwide to protect civilians in conflict. The US-drafted resolution was adopted by a vote of 14 in favour yesterday, with Egypt abstaining. The resolution, which has been under intense negotiation for a week, endorses a new UN policy of sending entire peacekeeping units back home if their soldiers face repeated allegations of sex abuse. The measure allows UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to bar a country from peacekeeping if it fails to take action against soldiers who face credible allegations. Foreign troops found guilty of sex abuse "do not deserve to serve in UN peacekeeping missions," US Ambassador Samantha Power told the council. "To the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse, we pledge that we will do better," she said. "We will do better to ensure that the blue helmets we send as your protectors do not become perpetrators." Egypt, along with Russia and Senegal, had argued that the new policy amounts to collective punishment and that attention should focus on prosecuting individual perpetrators of sex crimes. Minutes before the adoption, Egypt presented an amendment that would have added criteria for deciding on a repatriation, a move Power said would have "undermined the purpose of the resolution." That amendment was backed by Angola, Russia, China, Egypt, Venezuela but it fell short of the nine votes needed for approval in the 15-member council. Egyptian Ambassador Amr Abdellatif Aboulatta said the resolution will "negatively affect the morale of the troops and demonstrates contempt for the sacrifices of tens of thousands of peacekeeping personnel operating under extremely difficult conditions." Egypt argued that it was up to the UN General Assembly, and not the Security Council, to take action on issues of discipline in UN peacekeeping. Concern has been growing since the release of a UN report showing a rise in the number of allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers in 10 missions, from 52 in 2014 to 69 last year. Cases of child rape by UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic have been particularly damaging, prompting Ban to fire the mission commander in August, but the allegations have continued to surface. Under UN rules, it is up to the country that contributes the peacekeepers to investigate and prosecute any soldier accused of misconduct while serving under the UN flag. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said today that UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has "no right" to discuss future presidential elections in the war-wracked country. "Neither he nor anyone else, whoever they may be, has the right to discuss presidential elections. This right is exclusively for the Syrian people," Muallem told a press conference in Damascus. The United States has asked the UN Security Council to discuss Iran's recent ballistic missile launches during a meeting on Monday, the US ambassador said. The United States is "deeply concerned" about the missile tests "which are provocative and destabilising," Samantha Power said in a statement yesterday. fired two long-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday and similar tests were carried out on Tuesday, less than two months after the nuclear deal was implemented. Power said Iranian military leaders had claimed that the missiles were designed to be a direct threat to Israel and added, "We condemn such threats against another UN member-state and one of our closest allies." Under the nuclear deal with that came into force January 16, most sanctions resolutions against Tehran were annulled. But an arms embargo and restrictions on ballistic missile technology capable of carrying a nuclear warhead remain in place, under Resolution 2231. Iran has maintained that its missile program is not aimed at developing a nuclear capability. "We will raise these dangerous launches directly at council consultations, which we have called for, on Monday," said Power. "These launches underscore the need to work with partners around the world to slow and degrade Iran's missile program," she added. On Wednesday, Iran fired two Qadr-H and Qadr-F precision missiles fired from launcher trucks tucked in a mountain range in northern Iran, hitting targets about 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) away in the southeastern Makran area, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said. A day earlier, state media announced that short-, medium- and long-range precision guided missiles were fired from several sites to show the country's "all-out readiness to confront threats". US and Russian officials were to meet today on Syrian opposition charges of truce violations by the regime but peace talks remain on course, US Secretary of State John Kerry said. Asked at the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia whether indirect dialogue in Geneva between the Syrian regime and opposition could go ahead as planned on Monday, Kerry said: "Yes, it can." "Our teams are meeting today with Russia in both Geneva and Amman, where very detailed lay downs will take place regarding these allegations and I am requesting a call with Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov today and we will work through these and we have been each day," he said of the opposition complaints. Air raids by the Syrian regime killed seven civilians in rebel-held areas of second city Aleppo yesterday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based monitoring group termed the strikes "the most serious violation in the city since the truce came into effect". But Kerry, who met Saudi Arabia's King Salman for talks on Syria, said that "perceived" violations of the ceasefire that began on February 27 should not derail the UN-mediated talks. "The level of violence by all accounts has been reduced by 80 to 90 per cent, which is very, very significant. And what we want to do is continue to work to reduce these. "We believe that the start of talks this next week in Geneva presents a critical moment for bringing the political solution to the table that we've all been waiting for, even as we extend the humanitarian assistance and continue to try to reduce the violence," he said. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said: "I would emphasise that people see the future of Syria without (President) Bashar al-Assad." Yesterday, the Syrian opposition said it will attend the peace talks, stoking hopes that the war-ravaged country may be able to end five years of civil war and move towards elections in 18 months. The two-week ceasefire has created a lull in fighting between the Russian-backed regime and non-jihadist rebels. The UN Syria envoy called on yesterday for elections in the war-ravaged country to be held by the middle of 2017. The US State Department said the truce "has produced a dramatic reduction in violence", although it warned that the regime was still carrying out attacks. "Despite the reduction in violence nationwide, we remain deeply concerned by continued specific violations to the cessation of hostilities, including attacks on civilians and opposition forces by the regime and its supporters," spokesman John Kirby said. Refuting the charge that the JNU students were "wasting taxpayers' money", a Delhi University professor today asked those questioning their patriotism to evaluate them and their patriotism on the basis of quality of work they do for the weaker sections of the society. "Universities have the responsibility much deeper than just to create a workforce, it should create humans.University gives us an opportunity to rise above our personal problems and think about the nation and its problems and ways to solve them," Professor of Sociology at DU Satish Deshpande said. He was addressing a gathering of JNU students and teachers at the varsity's administrative block. "University is not bricks and stones, it is made of people like us who ask questions and try honestly to find answers to those questions. It is important for the students to develop a world view and be more empathetic to others' concerns and universities develop that," he added. Deshpande was speaking on 'Worldview, University and Nation', the 19th lecture in the series of lectures by JNU Professors and eminent personalities on "nationalism" being held at JNU following the arrest of three students in a sedition case over an event against hanging of Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised. Deshpande rejected the allegations that the JNU students were "wasting taxpayers' money", saying their patriotism lies in the quality of work they do for the weaker sections of society. "We don't have to raise slogans like 'Bharat Mata ke Jai' to prove our patriotism. Sloganeering is not enough, you should do concrete work for the country. They should evaluate us and our patriotism on the basis of what we do in this university, the kind of work and researches that we do and for whom (the weaker sections)," Deshpande said. Later in the day, Economist Venkatesh Athreya spoke to the students and lauded them for their struggle against "communal fascism and corporate Hindutva". An alumnus of IIT Madras, Athreya said JNU embodies in it the culture of questioning things, an important element for any society's well-being. "IIT taught me to answer question and not to question things. But what you have here is a wonderful struggle and my heart is with JNU. "Country would be very poor without JNU. We will fight not for one JNU but for a thousand JNUs," he added. Athreya also voiced his support for a more inclusive democracy in India. "We want and celebrate plurality and democracy. But democracy not just in the electoral sense, but the sense in which (B R) Ambedkar talked about." Meanwhile, the ABVP, which is locked in an ideological battle with left backed outfits on campus, organised a "kavi sammelan" to commemorate the sacrifices of those who became martyrs for the country. A court in Venezuela has sentenced a newspaper editor to four years in prison for defamation after the paper investigated alleged corruption at a major company, the newspaper has said. Critics denounced the sentence by the court yesterday in the southern state of Bolivar against Correo del Caroni chief David Natera as an attack on press freedom and a form of preventive censorship aimed at discouraging investigative reporting. The newspaper published a series of investigative articles between May and September 2013 accusing several businessmen linked to the iron ore miner CVG Ferrominera Orinoco of embezzlement, extortion and conspiracy. Critics jumped on the of Natera's sentencing. "Correo del Caroni was found guilty for exercising its editorial independence and contributing to transparency," the paper's editor Oscar Murillo tweeted. This sentence is aimed at intimidating Venezuelan media "to force them to submit to censorship and self-censorship that is unnecessary in a democratic country," Tinedo Guia, president of the National Journalists' Union, told reporters. "Any media receiving information tomorrow about a case of corruption will think about Correo del Caroni's example and probably stop the investigation or publication of the information," said Carlos Correa, director of Public Space, a freedom of expression NGO. He called the case a "mechanism of preventive censorship." Although Natera will remain free pending an appeal, he is barred from leaving the country and must appear in court every 30 days. Venezuelan socialist President Nicolas Maduro is under immense pressure from an economic crisis and an opposition that has vowed to pursue all means to force him from power since it won control of parliament in December. Last month, legislators debated reforms to the country's strict media law. Residents of Barsana and Nandgaon villages have threatened to boycott their famous 'Lathamaar Holi' if the Tourism Department holds Holi Mahotsava before it. While the Department has decided to hold the Mahotsavain Vrindaban on March 16, the villagers have reservations against it as the Lathamaar Holi of Barsana is slated for March 17 and of Nandgaon, following day. "If the administration wants to promote Holi of Braj, it should organize the event after March18 when the Lathamaar Holi of the twin villages would be over," Ram Bharose Goswami, a villager, said. While, another villager Tarachand Goswami said the celebration of the festival would be in peril if the Holi Mahotsava is allowed to take place prior to the Lathamaar Holi. "If the administration thinks, the programme is necessary for promoting the Holi of Braj then it should be organised in Barsana," Sanjai Goswami, an advocate, said. Justifying the holding of the Mahotsava in Vrindaban on March 16, District Magistrate Rajesh Kumar said "the programme By the Tourism department is being misinterpreted and its not parallel to the Lathamaar Holi." The plan is to present all shades of Brijbhumi's Holi in order to attract international tourists. Efforts would be made to highlight Holi of Barsana and Nandgaon also in order to ensure the reach of international tourist in the twin villages from next year, the District Magistrate said. Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra today underscored the need for good governance and honest administration for the development of country even as he decried clash of erstwhile ideologies and traditions with new ideas and perception. Noting that India is a large, populous country with many religions, old orientations, diverse socio-religious and socio-cultural elements, Vohra said clashes of ideas is not a very good mixture in terms of management and governance. "In our totally free environment of democracy that we have, some of these erstwhile ideologies, traditions, come to clash with new ideas and perception, some of which emanate from electoral politics. This leads to not a very good mixture in terms of management and governance," he said speaking at the launch of his book 'Safeguarding India'. His comments came against the backdrop of the hotly debated issue of nationalism and right to dissent in the wake of the JNU controversy. Vohra said the unity and integrity of the country is to preserved. "Needless to say, we need good governance. No growth and development is possible unless there is efficient, honest administration," he said ahead of the lauch of his book by Vice President Hamid Ansari. The Governor stressed on the need for to have a safe and secure environment. "Not only within the vast territory of ours but also in terms of how secure are our frontiers, how well prepared (we are) to ever increasing challenges we face today, from sources both known and unknown, state and non-state actors," Vohra, a former bureaucrat, said. Vohra was in the Indian Administrative Service between 1959 and 1994. He also served on the National Security Advisory Board from 1998 to 2001 and headed the National Task Force on internal security. A 23-year-old private school teacher has been arrested on charges of kidnapping and sexually assaulting her 15-year-old student with whom she had run away last year. The now pregnant teacher, who had been missing along with the boy since March 31, 2015, was arrested after both were traced to a private mill near Tirupur where they were working, police said today. The boy's parents in their complaint to police last year, had said he had taken away 60 sovereigns gold jewels and Rs 10,000 cash from his house before fleeing with the teacher. The teacher and the boy had eloped on the final day of the class X exams. Police traced the teacher and the boy, living together, after monitoring the calls they made to their friends and relatives from a public telephone booth in Tiruppur. The post-graduate teacher had been booked for kidnap and sexual assault under relevant sections of the IPC and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. After a medical check up at a government hospital, the teacher of a school in Kadayanallur in the district was produced before Judicial Magistrate Jagadeeswari who remanded her to judicial custody yesterday, they said. The boy was sent to a children's home and would be produced before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday where a habeas corpus petition by his parents is pending. Bollywood actor Amit Sadh says working with superstar Salman Khan in "Sultan" has been a life changing experience. The "Kai Po Che" actor plays a pivotal role and says Salman is "phenomenal" who will emerge in a new way in the Ali Abbas Zafar-directed action drama. "Meeting him was life changing, working with him was life changing. He is phenomenal. With 'Sultan', a new Salman will emerge," Amit told PTI in an interview. Produced by Yash Raj Films, "Sultan", which also stars Anushka Sharma, centers around a wrestler who has problems in his professional and personal life. There were reports that Amit will be seen playing the role of young Sultan in the film. The actor, however, did not divulge any details about his character. "The shooting is coming along great. I am not allowed to talk about my role yet. But I am playing something good in the film." Amit will be next seen in the fictional sports-drama "Saat Kadam". Directed by Mohit Kumar Jha, the film also stars Ronit Roy and Deeksha Seth. It is scheduled to release mid-year. Yemeni police clashed with Al-Qaeda fighters on today in second city Aden as pro-government forces pressed their offensive to break a rebel siege on third city Taez, security sources said. In the internationally recognised government's temporary capital of Aden, fighting broke out in the Mansura residential district after security forces set up new checkpoints, they said. Dozens of gunmen in balaclavas carrying the Al-Qaeda flag deployed to push back police trying to enter the neighbourhood, witnesses said. Late today, jihadists shot at an Apache helicopter from the Saudi-led military coalition backing the police, they said, before a fighter jet intervened to strike jihadist positions. Jihadists from Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have taken advantage of the conflict between the Huthi insurgents and pro-government forces to reinforce their presence in the south, including the port city of Aden. Meanwhile, pro-government forces on today pressed their offensive aimed at breaking the rebels' months-long siege of the southwestern city of Taez, military sources said. Fighting raged north and east of the city, they said, a day after loyalists pushed the Iran-backed Huthis out of its western and southern suburbs. Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi managed to "retake important positions" in a northern suburb where heavy clashes continued, one source said. But retaking the eastern part will be more difficult, the source said, as this is held by the Republican Guard, an elite army unit loyal to former president and Huthi ally Ali Abdullah Saleh. The rebels and their allies have been attacking residential neighbourhoods of Taez from this area, which includes an airport, an industrial zone and the headquarters of the special forces, the source added, without giving a death toll for the fighting. Loyalists today morning pushed back rebels trying to retake the headquarters of the army's 35th brigade in the western suburbs, sources said. Loyalists last summer retook five southern provinces including Aden and have for months been fighting to win back Taez. Breaking the siege should allow for humanitarian and medical aid to reach about 200,000 besieged residents, Taez governor Ali al-Maamari said yesterday from exile in Saudi Arabia. The capital Sanaa further north has been under rebel control since September 2014. Ed tech can help students develop critical social and emotional skills and character traits, but the market for such tools is currently underdeveloped, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group. The report, titled New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology , identifies two main areas for growth: Products that target core academic subjects, which the groups contend can do a better job of incorporating features that support development of everything from communication skills to cultural awareness, and newer technologies, such as wearable devices and virtual reality systems, which the groups believe warrant additional investment. Technology can personalize learning, engage the disengaged, complement what happens in the classroom, extend education outside the classroom, and provide access to learning to students, the report reads, but the number of [social-emotional learning] products in the ed-tech market today is insufficient. K-12 educators and policymakers have in recent years paid increasing attention to the importance of social and relational skills to success in school and in life. The notion of social-emotional learning, which often overlaps with such ideas as noncognitive skills and character development, does not yet have a consensus definition, although many in the field follow the model outlined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. Some efforts have been made to bring the different notions together, and many districts are trying to incorporate the concept into their curricula and school-improvement strategies, under the general principle that students will benefit from help in developing the ability to understand and regulate their own emotions, form strong and supportive relationships, solve problems, and set and achieve goals. Some research has shown that students perform better academically and have improved life outcomes when they receive explicit instruction around these areas. Both the newly passed Every Student Succeeds Act and the recently issued National Education Technology Plan include acknowledgement of the trend. For the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group, the idea of social-emotional learning covers a set of 10 competencies and character traits that their report describes as every bit as important as the foundational skills required for traditional academic learning. The groups believe that SEL is most effective when introduced via direct instruction in the early years, and when embedded through schools core curricula in the elementary and secondary years. A survey of 2,000 parents and educators in five countries (China, Kenya, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States) found that social-emotional learning is widely recognized, but poorly understood. Parents and educators across the world primarily see SEL as a means of achieving better classroom discipline today, not as a way to ensure better academic and economic outcomes over the long term, the report reads. That lack of understanding is one reason why technology tools related to social-emotional learning have been slow to take off, the groups contend. A survey of ed-tech-related investments found that only 5 percent of of venture capital in the ed-tech sector between 2011 and 2015 went to companies that include SEL in their products. The area that is most immediately ripe for growth, the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group believe, is in adding new SEL-focused features into existing tools. The report includes a list of 55 such features, including strategies for structuring student interactions (e.g., to encourage turn-taking), encouraging students to adopt different perspectives (e.g., via role-playing), and develop grit (e.g., by including rankings and leader boards, which ostensibly can help motivate students to persist through challenges.) But futuristic technologies such as wearable devices that track students emotional states and physiological reactions to stress, for example, or virtual reality systems that can simulate physical environments and foster greater self-awareness and spur creativity, are also important for expanding the realm of the possible, the report says. In addition to misunderstandings by parents and educators, barriers to further adoption of ed-tech products that focus on social-emotional learning include a lack of valid and reliable ways to measure the skills in question, insufficient prioritization by both policymakers and investors, and continued concerns about screen time, data privacy, and the general use of technology in the classroom. The report is the second in a series from the World Economic Forum on ways to address the 21st century skills gap through technology. See also: Private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC is nearing a deal to acquire Fresh Market Inc, a US specialty grocery retailer, for more than $1.3 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The deal would underscore Apollo's confidence that it can turn around in the highly competitive U.S. grocery sector. The New York-based buyout firm's past investments include Sprouts Farmers Market and Smart & Final Stores Inc. Read more from our special coverage on "M&AS" Regulators fog up definition of control over target firm Apollo has prevailed in an auction for Fresh Market with a cash offer of $28.50 per share, and is now finalizing the terms of the deal, one of the people said. An agreement could be announced as early as Monday, the people added, cautioning it had not yet been finalised and that it was still possible for the deal to be amended or fall apart at the last minute. Apollo declined to comment, while Fresh Market representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Fresh Market said in October it had retained investment bank JP Morgan Chase & Co to assist in a review of strategic options, including the potential sale of the company. Fresh Market's shares ended trading in New York on Friday at $22.98. Reuters had earlier reported, citing sources, that the Greensboro, North Carolina-based company's founder and board chairman Ray Berry was considering taking the company private. Berry's son-in-law, Michael Barry, who previously served as Fresh Market's chief financial officer, was also considering rolling his 6.4 percent stake in the deal, the sources said at the time. Fresh Market has 183 stores, which it operates across 27 states. Its predominately southeastern locations include North Carolina, Florida and Georgia. Its Mid-Atlantic and Midwest locations include Connecticut, New York, Kansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Last year, Fresh Market hired Rick Anicetti as chief executive to help battle low margins and declining same-store sales. He had previously served for eight years as President and CEO of Food Lion LLC's grocery stores. While the government gives concerted push to manufacturing to revive economic growth through the Make in India campaign, chief economic adviser asserted on Saturday that India will have to focus on exports in services sector to grow at 8-10 per cent. It is possible to harness the Make in India campaign but instead of growth being led just by manufacturing, it has to be through a combination of manufacturing and services, said Subramanian at the Advancing Asia conference co-hosted by the International Monetary Fund and India. We can have a uniquely Indian model, which is export-led but not just focused on manufacturing, he said. The BJP-led government in some cases has even resorted to trade protectionism, including minimum import price, anti-dumping and safeguard duty on steel, to support domestic industry. India cant deviate from the historical experience and grow at eight per cent without rapid exports and just depending on domestic demand, said Subramanian. Indias merchandise exports fell for the 14th straight month in January on account of persistent weakness in the global demand and low commodity prices, including oil. January exports fell 13.6 per cent year on year, while imports shrank 11.01 per cent, according to data released by the ministry of commerce and industry. On macroeconomic stability, Subramanian said the government is taking a number of steps to accelerate growth and states are competing with each other, which has added to the dynamism of the Indian economy. Subramanian also raised concern over recent comments by Donald Trump, the Republican Partys frontrunner for the US presidential elections on scrapping the H1B Visa. His comments are very worrying about our model of growth, Subramanian said. Subramanian also suggested that China should move from a surplus to a current account deficit economy to facilitate the current growth model. China needs to become a current account deficit country to partly facilitate trade led model of growth for other countries and not just India, he said. On China slowdown, Subramanian said there was a need for a coordinated fiscal response at the global level to address it. The puzzle is not China slowing down, the puzzle is why it didnt slowdown earlier, he added. NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan called on Saturday for global central banks to adopt a system for assessing the wider impact of their policies. He proposed that a group of academics should measure and analyse the "spillover" effects of monetary policies and assign green, orange and red grades to indicate which should be used and which avoided. The monitoring system could be adopted through an international agreement along the lines of the Bretton Woods currency agreement or through the International Monetary Fund, Rajan said. (Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh, Neha Dasgupta, and Rafael Nam; Editing by Catherine Evans) Its reasonably well known that income from agriculture attracts no tax in India. What isnt quite as well known is that of more than 400,000 taxpayers claiming exemption for agricultural income in the assessment year 2014-15, the biggest were seed giant Kaveri Seedsit claimed Rs 186.63 crore exemption and made a profit of Rs 215.36 crore before taxand multinational Monsanto India, which claimed Rs 94.40 crore as exemption from agricultural income and earned Rs 138.74 crore profit before tax. Agro-companies growing crops are allowed the same tax relief as individuals in states levying no agricultural income tax, although some states do indeed tax some kinds of farming. Allowing big farmersindividuals or companies farming more than say 30 acresagricultural income-tax exemption makes no sense, said R Durairaj, CEO and founder, Mother India Farms, an organic farm. Durairaj farms 200 acres of family land and supports agricultural-income-tax reformalthough he does not pay any tax on his agricultural income. On 39 million Indians, falls the countrys tax burden The rural crises that beset India are unprecedented this century, but agriculture also hides a number of companies and rich farmers, whom no finance minister will taxalthough with their numbers declining, as we shall see, these are reasonably easy to identify. Agricultural income is exempt from taxation in spite of large agricultural holdings, said the 2014 Third Tax Administration Reform Commission (TARC) report. a large number of rich farmers, who earn more than salaried employees in the cities, get away with paying no tax at all in view of the governments lack of will to consider an agricultural income tax. Taxing large agriculturists would help widen Indias taxpayer baseas the 2016 Economic Survey recommendedbeyond the current 5.5%, or 39 million earning individuals, who pay tax. The aversion to taxing agriculture is the fallout of a colonial experience when farmers were taxed, but it is not very widely know that some states do indeed tax some farms. Why agriculture haslargelynot been taxed for 130 years When India introduced income tax in 1886 under colonial rule, income tax on agriculture was kept out of its ambit because of existing land levies and the right to collect any form of agricultural income tax was vested with the main colonial administration. In 1935, the right to land revenue, and to potential agricultural income tax, was transferred to the provinces, todays states. Since then, each state has developed its own agricultural income- tax policy, with wide interstate disparities. Consider these examples: Uttar Pradesh introduced agricultural income tax in 1948, and repealed it in 1957, one of six states to flip flop thus in the first decade post Independence, to move away from oppressive agricultural taxes under the British, one of the reasons for the freedom struggle, said Indira Rajaraman, leading economist and RBI Chair Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. Or, because the meagre prospect of revenue of the tax on income arising from cultivation of non-plantation crops and also the growing cost of collection compelled some states to abandon this tax in course of time, writes Biswadeb Chatterjee in Tax Performance in Indian States: A Comparative Study.